PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 



PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

RELATING^ JO ^HE 

SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR 
AND ITS ISSUES 

COMPILED AND ARRANGED BY 

ROBERT I. FULTON 

DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF ORATORY AND PROFES- 
SOR OF ELOCUTION AND ORATORY IN OHIO 
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 

AND 

THOMAS C. TRUEBLOOD 

PROFESSOR OF ELOCUTION AND ORATORY IN THE 
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
NEW YORK :;;:::::: 1900 



44831 



E' 



13 



Likrary of Conyress 

Two Copies Received 
SEP 8 1900 



No 



FIRST COPY. 

2ni C«pj| Oetiverad to 

ORDER DIVISION 

SFP 13 1900 



Copyright, 1900, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



TROW OinECTORY 

FRIKTINQ AND ROOKBINOING COMPANT 

NEW TORK 



^' 



^ 



\\Q 



PREFACE 

It is said that a nation's history may be read in 
the utterances of her great orators. The history 
of oratory shows that great epochs in national 
growth inspire the best eloquence of the times. In 
order that the most notable orations relating to the 
Spanish-American "War and its issues may be put 
into convenient form, this compilation is offered to 
the reading jjublic. 

The compilers and editors of this volume may 
claim consideration for its merits, since its authors, 
the orators represented, are well - known Ameri- 
cans from all sections of our country, presenting 
all phases of the stirring questions of this epoch- 
making period. For the most part the speakers 
themselves have furnished the corrected copy, with 
suggestions as to the passages to be used. We have 
followed these suggestions so far as they conform to 
the general plan of the book, and we trust that no 
misfit has been made in cutting the cloth to suit the 
pattern. 

We have not attempted an exhaustive collection. 
Our aim has been to make a judicious selection of 



VI PREFACE 

speeches, to preserve the characteristic eloquence of 
each speaker, together with the main thought of the 
entire speech, and to secm*e such brevity and adap- 
tation as may make the volume available for the 
general reader and the earnest student of public 
speaking. It is hoped that an added interest may 
be found in the biographical notes concluding the 
book. 

We take this occasion to thank the speakers 
herein represented for their uniform courtesy and aid 
in the preparation of the following pages. 

Egbert I. Fulton, 
Thomas C. Trueblood. 

May 2, 1900. 



CONTENTS 



i^ 



PAGE 

'JLtman Abbott : 

I. — International Brotherhood, ..... 1 
II. — The Rebellion of the Filipinos, 4 



James B. Angell : 

I. — War and Arbitration, . . . .... 7 

II. — Province of Arbitration, 9 

5( John Henky Barrows : 

I.— The National Peace Jubilee, . . . • . U 
II. — Results of the Spanish- American War, . . .14: 

H James W. Bashford : 

The Philippines, 18 

The Crisis, 20 

Albert J. Beveridge : 

Partisanship and Patriotism, ..... 24 

March of the Flag, 27 

The Republic's Task, 31 

Our Duty in the East, . . ... 34 

^William J. Brtan : 

Annexation, ........ 39 

Imperialism, ........ 42 

Future of the Philippines, 44 

America's Mission, 48 

DONELSON CaFFERT : 

I. — Acquisition of Foreign Territory, . . . .54 
II. — Failure of Sub-tropical Republics, . . . .57 
vii 



Vlll 



CONTENTS 



W. Roi KKE ("ockkan: 

I. — Evils of a Standing Army, . 
II. — Trade and the P'lag, . 
III.— Alliance with England, 
IV. — Disposition of the Pliilippines, 

I._T1r. Porto Rican Tariff, 
II. — IiniHTialisni, 



61 
r>4 

68 
71 

74 
77 



RoBKUT G. Cor.sixs: 



Tribute to the Maine Victims, . 
Causes and Issiies of the Spaui.sh War. 
The Regular Army, .... 



84 
86 

yo 



SiiKr.nY Ci U.OM : 

1. — Right of Possession, . 
II. — Hostile Critics, . 
III. — Our Coniniercial Relations, 



95 

97 
99 



CrsiiM \\ K. Davis : 

Our Relations with Spain, 
I. — The Treaty of Paris, . 
II. — Cession of the Philippines, 



101 
104 
108 



CnAr.N( i:y M. Diciew 



Our National Guard. 113 

America's New Era, . . . . .116 

England and America since tlie Spanish War, . . 118 



.loNATIIAN P. Dnir.ivi.u : 

I. — rpliolil the President, 
II.— National Sclf-Restraint, 
Stand by the (.Jovernment. 



122 

125 
128 



.ImiN Tkmple Gkavks : 

I. — Our Country's Birthday, 
II. — Our Lofty Purpose, . 
III. — Our Country's Flag, . 



131 
134 
137 



CONTENTS IX 

PAQB 

y George F. Hoar : 

I.— Lust of Empire, 139 

II. — Government of the Philippines, 141 

III.— The Dignity of Labor, 144 

The Delirium of Conquest, 148 



Clark Howell : 

I. — Our Reunited Country, 
II. — A Common Foe, 
III. — An Army of Invincibles, 
L — No Need of Pessimism, 
II. — Mission of the United States, 



153 
155 
157 
160 
164 



^ John Ireland : 

% I.— Just War is Holy, 167 

II. — America a World Power, 170 

X Charles E. Jefferson: 

I. — Temptation from the Mountain Top, . . . -174 
II. — Our Relations with England, 178 

Wilfred Laurier : 

I. — Unwritten Alliance, 181 

II.— Union of Hearts, 183 

William Lindsay : 

I. — Law is with Duty, ....... 187 

II. — Inexcusable Insurrection. ....•■ 191 



> 



Henry Cabot Lodge : 

The Treaty of Peace, 194 

I. — Retain the Philippines, 197 

II. — An Eastern Power, 201 

John D. Long : 

Our New Problems, ....... 205 

Presentation of Sword to Admiral Dewey, . . . 209 

The American Navy, ....... 214 



CONTENTS 



William McKim.et : 

Duty Determines Destiny, 
I. — A Nation Indivisible Forever, 
11. — New National Duties, 

I. — High Obligations, 
II.— Disposition of the Philippines, 
III. — Emancipators, not Masters, 



218 
220 
222 
224 
22G 
229 



FkamvLin MacVeagh : 

The Nation's Heroism, 
I. — Anti-Expansion Bugbear, , 
II. — Relations with the World, , 
III. — Not mere Laud Expansion, 



232 
234 

237 
240 



George R. Peck : 

The Year of Jubilee, . 
I. — The New Union, 
II. — Sovereignty Follows the Flat 



243 
245 
247 



liKDKIELD PkOCTOK : 

I.— The Condition of Cuba, 
II. — Cuban Parties, . 



250 
253 



WllITl.LAW Rkii) : 



Purport of the Treaty, 
The Path of Duty, . 
The General Welfare, 



256 
260 
265 



(■ vKi. Sciiiitz : 

I. — " .Vmericaiiiziiitr " Our New Possessions, 
II. — Objections to I'xpansioii, . 
III. — Relations with England, 
IV.— The Nation's Credit at Stake, 
V. — Impediment to Disarmament, 
VI.— Duty to Our Possessions, . 
Criminal .Aggression, . 
Imperialism Hostile to Liberty, 



269 
272 
274 

277 
279 
281 
284 
287 



CONTENTS XI 

PAGE 

Charles Emokt Smith : 

The War for Humanity, 290 

The Republic's Higher Glory, 294 

Emoey Speer : 

I. — " One and Inseparable," ...... 297 

II.— The Monroe Doctrine, 300 

John M. Thurston : 

I. — Spain's Heartless Cruelty, ...... 304 

II.— Time for Action, 307 

Humanity's Cause Triumphant, . . . ... 310 

Charles E. Towne : 

I.— "Lest We Forget," 313 

II. — Colonialism, ........ 316 

K Henry Van Dyke : 

I. — The American Birthright and the Philippine Pottage, . 319 

II. — A Momentous Problem, 322 

III. — Colonial Imperialism, ....... 326 

V Booker T. Washington : 

The Better Part, 330 

The Negro in the Late War, 333 

Henry Watteeson : 

The Birth of Greatness, 337 

Edward O. Wolcott : 

The War Inevitable, 341 

The Treaty with Spain, 343 

Biographical Notes, 347 



LYMAN ABBOTT 

[Extracts from a speeeh delivered at Tremont Temple, Boston, 
March 27, 1899.] 



^INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD 

It requires a certain amount of civilization to sub- 
stitute law for war, reason for force. Nations that 
have lived under the beneficent and inspiring influence 
of Christianity as long as Italy, Germany, France, 
England, and the United States ought to be able to 
settle their controversies by an appeal to reason rather 
than to force, by law not war. Certainly two nations 
coming of the same stock, possessing in their veins the 
same blood, looking back along the past to the same 
history — certainly two such nations as these, mother 
and daughter, ought to know how to settle all contro- 
versies that may arise between them mthout the draw- 
ing of a sword or the flash of a rifle. 

AVhat we want, not only between England and 
America, but between all the civilized nations of the 
globe, is not arbitration, not an agreement to leave 
controversies when they arise to a special com-t, con- 
structed for the purpose of settling them. What we 
want is a permanent Supreme Court of the nations, 
that shall be for the nations of the globe what the Su- 
preme Court of the United States is for the States of 
this Union, to which all questions shall be referred as a 
matter of course, and by the decision of which all na- 
tions will be bound by the sacred obligations of honor. 

But there are communities that are not reasonable 
1 



2 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

and not bound by honor, just as there are individuals 
who are not reasonable and are not bound by honor. 
And then, in the case of the community as in that of 
the individual, there is no alternative but to compel 
obedience to reason and to honor. There is a theory 
that all use of force is wrong; it is labelled Philosophical 
Anarchism. The philosophical anarchist says to us, 
" Appeal to the reason and the conscience of men." 
But suppose there is no response? " Then submit to 
their wrong doing." Therefore the philosophical 
anarchist will not allow the punishment of a child by 
the parent, he will not allow the punishment of a pupil 
by the teacher, he will not allow the maintenance of a 
prison or jail for the punishment of a law-breaker by 
the country, he will not allow a policeman in the city, 
except to show ladies across muddy streets, and he will 
not allow an army to defend a nation attacked, or to 
emancipate another nation from despotism. This is 
a consistent philosophy. I respect it intellectually; 
I dissent from it both intellectually and morally. 

The commonly received judgment of men and wom- 
en says, " Appeal to the reason and the conscience, and 
if the reason and the conscience will not respond, then, 
and then only, use force." If the child will obey under 
the inspiration of aflPection and argument, by affection 
and argument secure obedience — but at all costs secure 
the obedience. If the boy revolts in the school, win 
him, if you can; if you cannot, put him in a reform- 
school. If tlie man sets himself to violate the law by 
breaking into your house, try to teach him better if 
you can ; but if you cannot, arm your policeman and 
compel him to respect your property. And if a com- 
munity disowns honor, disregards reason, refuses to 
submit its cause to the arl)itrament of reason, it is ra- 
tional, right-minded, and Christian heroism which 
says, " If we cannot persuade you to obey the law 
without force, we will compel you by force." 



LYMAN ABBOTT 3 

I am not, therefore, one of those who think that war 
is always wrong. I cannot think that Jesus Christ 
himself inculcated the doctrine that force never could 
be used — he who, when he saw the traders in the 
Temple, did not wait to argue with them nor to appeal 
to their conscience, for he knew that they had neither 
reason nor conscience, but drove them out with a whip 
of small cords, driving the cattle before him and over- 
turning the tables of the money-changers and letting 
the money roll upon the floor. I am not afraid to 
follow him with whatsoever force it may be necessary 
for righteousness to put on, when unrighteousness has 
armed herself to commit wrong. I cannot think all 
war is wrong. If I did, I should not want to look upon 
a Bunker Hill Monument, for it would be the monu- 
ment to our shame ; I should want never to speak the 
word Gettysburg, for my lips would blister and my 
cheeks would blush ; I should want to bury in the grave 
of oblivion forever the names of Washington and 
Grant. 

There are individuals with whom you cannot reason. 
They are barbarians, and you must use force until you 
can bring reason and righteousness to bear upon them. 
There are some communities, made up of barbarians, 
with which you cannot reason, and from them, if there 
is to be an international brotherhood and a reorganiza- 
tion of the world, we must compel obedience by force, 
that the foundations may be laid for the operation of 
reason and conscience. When Spain sent her navy and 
her soldiers across the Atlantic and took possession of 
Cuba, and exterminated the population, and brought 
in a new population, and then proceeded to harry that 
new people born of her own loins, so that, after three 
centuries, she left them without schools, or justice, or 
good roads, or any one thing that government gives in 
compensation for taxes, she was guilty of what is 
rightly called a war of conquest. When England went 



4 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

into Egypt and took control, and, as the result of her 
control, "^ built good roads, established good schools, 
lightened heavy taxes, made labor freer, and opened 
the whole country to the advance of civilization and the 
development of man — though she did it by the bom- 
barding of Alexandria in the beginning, and though 
she holds her power to-day by the sword — to call that 
also a war of conquest is to confound by a common 
name two things that have nothing in common, 

I do not know whether General Kitchener has car- 
ried on his campaign with all the humanities with 
which it ought to be carried on. I do not know whether 
it has been justified in the details of administration or 
not. But this I know, that when his work is done, and 
the great railroad runs from Cairo to the Cape, with 
branches to the Congo River on the west and the Gulf 
of Arabia on the east, and when a telegraph line runs 
along the railroad, slavery and the slave-trade and the 
cruelties of the old barbarism will disappear, and the 
" Darkest Continent " will be dark no more. Why not 
put the college first and the soldiers afterward? Be- 
cause you cannot found a college unless you have law 
to protect it; because first is law, and under law, force, 
and, built on law maintained by force, the whole fabric 
of civilization rests. 



n 

THE BEBELLION OF THE FILIPINOS 

Ox the fifteenth of last Febniary our representatives 
were in control of the government of IManila, and re- 
sponsible for the protection of life and property within 
that city. ^Miether we had blundered into that re- 
sponsibility is a question wliieh I do not now discuss; I 
am not here to argue the Pliilippine problem, so-called. 



LYMAN ABBOTT 



But it is true that last February the lives and the prop- 
erty of the people who lived in Manila did, in fact, 
depend on General Otis. On the fifth of that month 
our troops surrounding that city for its protection were 
attacked; fighting ensued; and ten days later the fol- 
lowing proclamation was issued from the so-called 
Malolos government, issued by an important ofiicer of 
the insurgent government for execution the night of 
February 15, 1899: 

" First, you will so dispose that at eight o'clock at 
night the individuals of the territorial militia at your 
order will be found united in all of the streets of San 
Pedro, armed with bolos and revolvers, or guns and 
aimnunition if convenient. Second, Philippine fami- 
lies only will be respected; they should not be mo- 
lested, but all other individuals, of what race they may 
be, will be exterminated without apprisement. 
Brothers, we must avenge ourselves on the Ameri- 
cans, and exterminate them that we may take our 
revenge for the infamy and treachery which they have 
committed upon us ; have no compassion upon them ; at- 
tack with vigor. Death to the tyrants ! War without 
quarter to the false Americans who have deceived us! 
Either independence or death! " 

A week later fire was set by incendiaries at various 
points in Manila, simultaneously with a new attempt 
to break through our lines. What would you have 
done if you had been General Otis, in command of those 
forces? I would have done what he did. I would have 
protected the city intrusted to my charge from those 
who threatened indiscriminate assassination and arson, 
and I would have sought, at every cost and hazard, to 
find the leader of the forces by whose authority that 
proclamation was issued, and to arrest him wherever 
he might be. To call this a war of conquest, to put it 
in parallel lines with a war such as that of Spain in 
Cuba, carried on for the purposes of robbery, is to con- 



6 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

found l»y the same name things that have nothing in 
common. 

AVhen we liave laid the foundations for civilization 
by law, established and maintained against the law- 
less, then we must pour into the uncivilized regions 
the forces that make for civilization. We must follow 
the force that compels obedience with the forces that 
make for life. We must do it in the family, we must 
do it in the school, we must do it in the city and the 
State, and we must do it among the nations of the earth. 
AVhere, therefore, we have established the founda- 
tions of law, there we must see that the free press, the 
free school, free industry, and a free church go also. 
Woe to us Christian men and women if in this hour, 
when the world is opening to us, when the gates are 
flung apart and law is being established where law 
never was known before — woe to us if we have no mes- 
sage, or no courage to send our message ! 

This is what I have to say. Ponder it. Something 
you will agree with, something you will disagree with; 
but think about it. If I am wrong, the sooner the 
Avrong is exposed the better for me. This is what I 
have to say : God is bringing the nations together. We 
must establish courts of reason for the settlement of 
controversies between civilized nations. We must 
maintain a force sufficient to preserve law and order 
among barbaric nations; and we have small need of an 
army for any other jiurpose. We must follow the main- 
tenance of law and the establishment of order and the 
foundations of civilization with the vitalizing forces 
that make for civilization. And we must constantly 
direct our purpose and our policies to the time when 
the whole world shall have become ci\dlized; when 
men, families, conmiunitics, will yield to reason and 
to conscience. And then we will draw our sword 
from its sheath and fling it out into the sea, rejoicing 
that it is gone forever. 



JAMES B. ANGELL 

[Extracts from a speech delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, 
November 19, 1898.] 



WAR AND ARBITRATION 

It may seem to some tliat any reference to the sub- 
ject assigned to me must strike a dissonant note in the 
paeans of victory which are thrilling our hearts at this 
hour. While this hall is ringing with the praises of the 
great captains who honor us with their presence to- 
night, and of their comrades and followers, and with 
the praises of the brilliant naval commanders who, 
with their gallant sailors, have won the admiration of 
the world for our navy, and with the praises of the 
wise commander-in-chief of our armies and navies, who 
has presided over the conduct of the war with such con- 
summate skill, to attempt to direct your attention to the 
tame and hackneyed theme of arbitration, to the quiet 
methods of settling international difficulties by the 
noiseless procedure of arbitration, may appear like ap- 
pointing a Quaker meeting on the edge of a battlefield. 

But when I remember that no brave American 
fights from delight in carnage, but only to secure an 
honorable peace; when I remember that the great cap- 
tain, General Grant, who knew well both the glories 
and the horrors of war, declared that he looked forward 
with hope and delight to an epoch when a court should 
settle international differences; when I remember how 

7 



8 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

President McKinley received the plaudits of the whole 
civilized world for so long employing every resource 
at his command to secure from Spain by peaceful meas- 
ures what he was reluctantly compelled at last to de- 
mand at the cannon's mouth; when I remember that 
he seized the first auspicious moment to make an armis- 
tice and open the doors of peaceful negotiation for the 
complete settlement of all questions in dispute, I vent- 
ure to hope that the subject is not altogether inop- 
portune. 

All nations have now learned that America shrinks 
not from war, if it is necessary, but that, in a mag- 
nanimous though self-respecting spirit, she loves, more 
than the glamour of victorious war, an honorable peace 
with all mankind. And indeed, we are summoned here 
to-night not to celebrate a war jubilee, but a jubilee of 
peace, of white-winged peace, on which the very spirits 
of heaven must look down with delight. 

In four wars we have established our fame as a mar- 
tial race. Xo nation now questions that, or w^ill ever 
again recklessly lay hand on us. But we have won 
laurels in peace not less glorious than those we have 
won in war, by our brilliant efforts in mitigating the 
evils of war, by setting the example to the world, from 
the days of Washington, of guarding the rights and 
discharging the duties of neutrals, and by seeking, 
through ]\Iarcy, forty years ago, to abolish privateering 
and to exempt private property from seizure on the 
sea. We have become fairly entitled to be known as 
the nation of arbitrators by the fact that, either as one 
of the principals or as an umpire, we have had part in 
nearly a hundred arbitrations. Two of them, that at 
Geneva to settle the Alabama claims and that at Paris 
to adjust the Bering Sea question, were perhaps the 
most important in history. Not one of our arbitrations 
has failed to stand, except when it was unsatisfactory to 
both parties. 



JAMES B. ANGELL 9 

May we not at this peace jubilee, even though the 
smoke of victorious battle has hardly drifted away from 
the shores and waters of Porto Rico, Cuba, and Manila, 
pledge ourselves anew to be true to the spirit of our 
history, and mingle with oiu- shouts of triumph our 
fresh declaration for arbitration, whenever possible, as 
the means of averting war and of settling most inter- 
national difficulties which do not yield to negotiation? 



11. 

PROVINCE OF ARBITRATION 

There are indeed some questions which cannot be 
submitted by a nation to arbitration. But there are 
many, like questions of disputed boundary, interpreta- 
tion of treaties, claims for damages, etc., which can be 
settled by arbiters — questions which, arising in time of 
popular excitement, like that on the Venezuelan ques- 
tion, might easily involve a nation in war. Arbitra- 
tion gains us time for the sober second thought. 

As in every civilized society courts have been estab- 
lished as the protectors of human rights in the place of 
brute violence, so let nations, wherever it is feasible, 
compose their serious differences like rational beings, 
by appeal to a just and dignified tribunal, whose find- 
ings will command the respect of mankind. While 
our ancient friend, the Czar of all the Russias, is seek- 
ing to relieve Europe of the intolerable burden which 
the immense standing armies have laid upon her, and 
is appealing to nations to cultivate the spirit of peace, 
let us send back an answering note across the sea, as- 
suring him that we hail with joy every advance toward 
a rational and peaceful method of settling national con- 
troversies and the substitution, wherever possible, of 



10 PATKIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

appeal to international tiil)unals, rather than to the 
dread arbitrament of war. 

We cherish no idle dreams of escaping war alto- 
gether. This war has suddenly led us to the brink of a 
new and untried career. Our insular possessions may 
bring us glories and rewards, but also some perilous 
pos^iliilities. Our points of frictional contact with, 
other nations arc multiplied. We need not be un- 
duly alarmed. There are disasters worse than war. 
And if armed conflict comes we need fear no lack 
of Mileses and Shafters and Wheelers and Roose- 
velts on the land and Deweys and Sampsons and 
Schleys and Philips and Evanses and Clarks on the 
sea, who will keep unsullied our bright escutcheon. 
But not one of our gallant heroes, I am sure, 
would plunge us into a war which might be honor- 
ably avoided. It is not the old sailor who speaks flip- 
pantly of the dangers of the storm at sea. It is not the 
veteran soldier who speaks lightly of the horrors of 
war. Just because we are strong, and we know we are 
strong, and all nations know we are strong, we can re- 
frain from a defiant and aggressive air. 

We shall stand ever ready to defend our rights, if 
need be, by our might. But as America long ago, 
under the guidance of Washington, Jefferson, and 
Hamilton, earned the gratitude of continental Europe 
for her ehampionsliip of the rights of neutral nations, 
may she now, while the welkin is ringing with shouts 
for her martial victories, have the higher glory of lead- 
ing, with sane and deliberate judgment, the procession 
of nations to the substitution, as far as possible, of the 
V juridical for the military settlement of international 
controversies. When the happy decision is reached, 
then may not only this proud city, but this whole na- 
tion, and all the nations of the 'world, celebrate the 
jubilee of peace. 



JOHN HENRY BARROWS 

[Extracts from a speech delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, 
November 19, 1898.] 

I. 

THE NATIONAL PEACE JUBILEE 

The year that has gone has been one of surprises. A 
few months ago and the thoughts of the American 
people were fastened on the wrongs and sufferings in- 
flicted by Spain in the West Indies; we were thinking 
of Cuba and the insurgents and the starving reconcen- 
trados. Then came the beginning of a necessary and 
righteous war, and suddenly, on a May morning, the 
old miracle of Concord and Lexington was repeated; 
thousands of miles away a shot was fired, and our atten- 
tion was summoned across the widest of oceans to the 
shores of the greatest of continents. America was in- 
stantly expanded, her arms were lengthened, and the 
hopes with which Columbus sailed forth four cen- 
turies ago, to find the East Indies, were strangely real- 
ized by those dwelling in the land which Columbus 
brought to the attention of mankind. America became 
an Asiatic power. The echoes of the artillery in the 
harbor of Manila brought the great continent seven 
thousand miles nearer to our shores. God spake in his 
providence. It was done, and the destinies of the 
greatest of republics were indissolubly united to the 
moral and material fortunes of eight hundred millions 
of human beings on the other side of the world. There 

11 



12 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

has been no parallel to this sudden expansion of na- 
tional obligation and opportunity in all the annals of 
mankind, and a half century hence it will be seen that 
the greatest moment in American history since Lin- 
coln's proclamation of emancipation was that moment 
on a May morning when Admiral Dewey, on the flag- 
ship Olympia gave the signal for the opening of the 
fateful battle. 

The war of the revolution accomplished much in 
making a nation out of jealous colonies, overcoming 
hostile and provincializing forces. Tlie forming of the 
Constitution continued the process, but developed an- 
tagonisms centring in slavery and in the centrifugal 
and denationalizing doctrine of State sovereignty. 
There was a long crisis and a titanic conflict, but the 
triumph which came after the bloody strife of civil 
war was a partial triumph. The national life was saved, 
but the wounds were not healed. The South was justly 
proud of her men, of her leaders, of her courage, of her 
devotion to what she deemed right. She lost much, 
but resolutely toiling on and recognizing the new order 
as inevitable, she regained much, and best of all, has 
come to realize that there is a God in history who over- 
rules and brings events to pass more wisely than we 
could have planned. And to me the most grateful re- 
sult of our struggle for the liberation of Cuba has been 
the healing of divisions between ISTorth and South, and 
the cementing of bonds which bind us into an indis- 
soluble and glorious unity. 

I am not praising the martial spirit; I am not glorify- 
ing war; but the victories of human rights have largely 
been victories of the battle-field. Marathon made 
Europe Greek, and not Asiatic; Tours made Europe 
Christian, and not Moslem; Xaseby and Dunbar made 
English-speaking nations free, and not slaves; Quebec 
made America Saxon and modem, and not autocratic 
and mediaeval; Saratoga and Yorktown made America 



JOHN HEXRY BARROWS 13 

American, and not Britisli; and Gettysburg proved 
that " a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to 
the sublime projDosition that all men are equal " can 
long endure. I believe that Manila and Santiago will 
rank in history among the decisive battles of the world. 
Ours was a war for humanity, which the greater states- 
men for fifty years have felt was ine^dtable. In our 
complacent prosperity we gave little heed to the help- 
less condition of the oppressed at our doors. It was 
only when the state of things became intolerable that 
the nation said these outrages must cease. The in- 
vincible proof that war was necessary, and that even 
the President's humane and skilful diplomacy could 
not have averted it, is this: Spain could not be trusted. 
The false, tortuous, and cruel policy of the Spaniard 
does not need to be rehearsed. The horrors of the 
Spanish occupancy of the Antilles do not need to be 
pictured again. Other nations may have been unable 
to comprehend our motives ; they may have taunted us 
with selfishness and jingoism; but we know that the 
spirit which inaugurated our intervention was the 
spirit of humanity. 

Other nations may not have understood that there 
is any unselfishness still left among men; but England, 
God bless her, was our friend, and has been drawn into 
closer fellowship with us than ever before in her his- 
tory. The universality and the continuance of English 
good-will in the last six months are proof that it is 
genuine. They are proud of us. They recognize in us 
what is best in themselves. An American living in 
Yokohama writes to me that the old English habit and 
temper of offensive superiority is altogether gone. And 
surely this is a miracle hardly paralleled in our cen- 
tury! We have in many things a kinship with Great 
Britain. Outside the area of Anglo-Saxon liberty there 
has been but little understanding of true American- 
ism; the spirit of the nation whom Lowell described as 



14 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

" She of the open soul and open door." On the con- 
tinent of Europe America is usually thought of as 
merely a fat, prosperous, conceited, lawless, unedu- 
cated mass of vulgar people. 

But the recent war has struck this great mass of 
ignorance and prejudice and has shown that we are 
strong where we were thought to be weak. Our good 
fighters have done more to open the eyes of Europe 
than our good scholars. Dewey's victory in Manila, 
the heroism of Santiago, the splendid shooting and sea- 
manship which destroyed the fleet of Cervera, have 
brought more to American prestige than our wealth, 
our schools, our libraries, and our prosperity had ac- 
complished. It may be a shameful fact, for it shows 
how primitive, how uninstructed, how material, is the 
average European mind. I am glad that these results 
have been achieved; not because I like to please a 
braggart Americanism, but because I am glad that the 
way is open for a better understanding of what is best 
in America. I love to have America recognized in her 
true glory, for I believe that America means the future 
of the race. It means toleration, education, freedom, 
justice, equality, and opportunity for vast areas that 
liave been desolated or undeveloped. 



n. 

RESULTS OF THE SPANISH-AMERICAN 
WAR 

Olotjtour results have come from this last great strug- 
gle between the :Middle Ages and the Declaration of In- 
dependence, between the Inquisition and the common 
pf'hool, between the rack mul toleration, between the 
Dnke of Alva mul George Washington, between Philip 
the Second an.l Abraham Lincoln. Spain discovered 



JOHN HENRY BARROWS 15 

America twice, once in 1492, and again in this year 
of wonders, 1898. We have come to discover ourselves 
and what we represent. We have come to care for all 
parts of our country. We are fired with a patriotism 
which burns all the way from Alaska to Florida, and 
from Washington to Honolulu. We are determined to 
bring the eastern and western coasts of our country 
close together, through the digging of the Nicaragua 
Canal. We shall bind Chicago and Manila into closer 
fellowship by electric wires beneath the seas. We 
have forsaken the policy of selfish isolation, and come 
to realize our world-mission in these days when God 
has made us a world-power. 

With the solemn sense of our new responsibility I 
tliank God that America has widened westward across 
the Pacific, which is to be the chief highway of the 
world's future commerce. I am glad that in Hawaii 
and the Ladrones and the Philippines we have step- 
ping-stones for American ideas over to the greatest 
and most populous side of the world. The great event 
of the twentieth century is to be the uplifting of Asia 
and thus the unitizing of the globe. Woe be to our 
western world, as Captain Mahan has indicated, if the 
great Asiatic nations become equipped with our arms 
and become rich with our inventions, and are not in 
harmony with our ideas and our ideals. The road is 
still open between Pekin and Vienna for new Asiatic 
hordes to press into Europe, and if an army of millions 
of Asiatics follows the path of Genghis Khan and Tam- 
erlane, armed with Maxim gims and modern rifles, who 
knows if Christian civilization will be able to push 
back the red wave of destruction. 

We have seen the rehabilitation of Japan, a great 
military and naval power; but thanks to Christian 
forces, Japan is not altogether out of harmony with 
western ideals. The great conflict of the future is to 
be between civilization, represented by pure homes, 



16 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

free schools, free churches, popular enlightenment, 
and political liberty, and the barbarism or semi-civiliza- 
tion of Asia, where womanhood is degraded, human 
rights are denied, opportunities are limited, deceit and 
impurity are universal, and where the popular mind 
has not expanded and been lifted heavenward by a 
Christianity which teaches the fatherhood of God and 
the brotherhood of man. Heaven forbid that we should 
go to the Philippines in the spirit with which Spain 
went to Cuba, or Holland to the southeastern Asiatic 
archipelago. If we hold them, and I do not see how we 
can get rid of them, let us hold them, to use the phrase 
of Benjamin Kidd, " as a trust for civilization." Let us 
show that America does not mean selfishness and 
spoliation, but means enfranchisement, uplifting, en- 
lightenment, peace, toleration. And if I know the 
American people, they cannot justly be described as 
" dizzy with dreams of colonial gain," anxious to re- 
peat in distant islands some such history of plunder 
and crime as marked the career of our conquered 
enemy in the West Indies and South America. 

There rises before me a vision of the twentieth cen- 
tury into whose dawn we are entering. It is to be a 
great century, perhaps greater than the nineteenth. As 
a nation we enter it not forgetful of what has been 
achieved. We already have national unity and local 
self-government. We shall have a new national ex- 
pansion in the days to come. We sliall see our com- 
merce and our ideas penetrating and controlling the 
West Indies and the East Indies. Our scholars, our 
missionaries, our teachers, our books, and our business 
will liave a deep entrance into the world of Asia. In 
this majestic work we shall be allied with Great Brit- 
ain, and the closer and truer that moral alliance, the 
brighter the prospect of peace and of international dis- 
armament. Before the twentieth century shall have 
endofl there may be great upheavals and disasters, but 



JOHN HENRY BAEROWS 17 

the empire of peace will be wide and the day will draw 
nearer when representatives of brotherly nations shall 
sit down in the parliament of man. God grant that this 
Peace Jubilee may uplift us and make us readier for the 
great future. 



JAIVIES W. BASHFORD 
THE PHILIPPINES 

[From an address delivered at BufiFalo, N. Y., September 4, 1899. J 

It is a condition and not a theory which confronts us. 
For a generation our people had been troubled by the 
groans of the oppressed growing loud enough at times 
to be heard across the Gulf. Presidents Grant and 
Hayes and Arthur and Cleveland and Harrison in turn 
asked Spain to deal justly with her Cuban subjects; 
but they asked in vain. At last the cries of the op- 
pressed became audible throughout our land. The 
Maine was sent to Havana on a friendly visit; and sud- 
denly, in the darkness of the night, by treachery, the 
ship and two hundred and sixty-six American sailors 
were sent to the bottom of the sea. The people of the 
United States repressed the rising cry for vengeance; 
but they informed Spain in no uncertain tones that 
henceforth she must treat the Cubans justly, or she 
herself would be swept from the western seas. The 
cu]) of the divine wrath was full to overflowing for 
Sjiain; and in her madness her answer was a declara- 
tion of war. In three months' time our warning was 
made good ; and the rule of the Spaniard, after lasting 
four Inmdred years, came to an end in the western 
continent. 

But before we had expelled a troublesome neighbor 
from our front yard, the attention of the world was 
attracted to a more marvellous achievement by Ad- 
miral Dewey in our back yard. May 1, 1898, the 

18 



JAMES W. BASHFORD 19 

United States had her " coming out " party. She had 
been growing great for a century and more. But from 
the sinking of the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay, the 
United States has been recognized in Europe as a 
world-power; and henceforth she must play her part 
either nobly or ignobly upon this larger platform. 
How we shall end the first act in the drama depends 
upon our solution of the problem: What shall we do 
with the Philippines? An illustration will answer the 
question better than an argument. Suppose your 
neighbor's daughter had been stolen some years ago 
by a roving band of Gypsies. The parents have spent 
their substauce in search for their lost child, and have 
died of broken hearts. On waking up some morning 
you find the long-lost daughter in your yard. Would 
you run after the ragged Gypsies and beg them to take 
the child again, because her father and mother are 
dead, and her property lost, and you do not wish the 
burden of her care? Xot if you are a Christian. 
Would you secretly feel thankful that the child is a 
helpless orphan and resolve to turn her into a per- 
manent servant and make her spend her life in house- 
hold drudgery for you? Xot if you are a Christian. I 
can read your decision in your faces. You w^ould take 
your dead neighbor's child into your own home, teach 
her to toil along with your own children, educate her 
by their side; possibly you might not go so far as to 
adopt her and put her name in your will with those of 
your own children, but at least, in due time, you would 
help to establish her in a home of her own. 

What shall we do with the Philippines? Shall we 
nm after that ragged Gypsy among the nations crying: 
" Take back the orphans, we dread responsibility? " 
Thank God, we have been saved from the disgrace of 
such selfish cowardice. Shall the Eepublic, upon the 
other hand, become suddenly drunk with blood, and 
resolve to hold these people in pennanent subjection 



20 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

and use their islands for stepping-stones for Asiatic 
conquests? Not if we are a Christian people. We 
must resolve before the nations and the God of nations 
that the great Kepublic will not subjugate these island 
children for oui' own greed or glory. If we can develop 
the Philippine Islands into American States, or unite 
them into a Swiss Republic of the Seas, standing in the 
door-yard of Asia and seen by her toiling millions, they 
may become the model of the Republics of Japan and 
India and China, the leader of the Orient in bringing 
in the Republic of God on eai-th. 



THE CRISIS 

[From an address delivered at Boston, November 20, 1899.] 

We stand at the parting of the ways. Two radi- 
cally different classes favor expansion. Financial 
speculators, politicians, and sensational journalists are 
clamoring for expansion for the sake of glory and of 
gain. Upon the other hand, missionaries and ministers, 
teachers and Christian editors, statesmen and philan- 
thropists, demand that the United States accept the 
great responsibility providentially thrust upon them, 
and administer the Philippines in the interest of 
humanity. Those far-off islands are set for the rise or 
fall of a nation. 

The Romans, Greeks, and Jews regarded themselves, 
each as a chosen people. They exalted themselves 
above their tasks and felt that the Most High would be 
forced to use them for the leadership of the race. But 
while they were dreaming of conquest and of power, 
God was saying to them, as He says to every individual 
and nation, " Either serve the world or perish." The 
Jews would have followed Christ to death unflinch- 



JAMES W. BASHFORD 21 

ingly in conquering the world; but they did not dream 
it could be the voice of God which summoned them to 
lowly service of mankind. Hence " the stone cut out 
of the mountain without hands " rolled over them and 
ground them to powder. The Anglo-Saxon has reached 
the parting of the ways where once stood the Roman, 
the Greek, and the Jew, each making his dire decision. 
We imagine that God has called us to the rulership of 
the world ; and many of us fail to hear His low whisper 
to His chosen people of to-day, " Either serve the 
world or perish." He calls us to bridle intemperance 
and lust, ambition and greed, at home and abroad. He 
sends us, as He sent His well-beloved Son, to serve the 
world, and thus to rule the world. Anglo-Saxons in the 
twentieth century must say to all races — to red men, 
black men, brown men, yellow men — " We are breth- 
ren," and lift them up to our higher plane of oppor- 
tunity; or we shall hear the Calibans and lagos, the 
Lobengulas and Aguinaldos hoarsely hissing in our 
ears, " We be brethren," and dragging us down to 
their lower level. The issue is still uncertain. It is 
possible that the Anglo-Saxons may give way to their 
race-vice, drunkenness; it is possible that worldliness 
and selfishness may so possess us that the rich shall be- 
come richer and the poor poorer, and the gulf between 
the classes become impassable; it is possible that the low 
mutterings of anarchy may rise into the wild cry of 
another reign of terror; it is possible that our civiliza- 
tion is becoming rotten before it is ripe, and that for 
our approaching crisis God is developing the military 
power of Russia that she may maintain order 
for the human race during the twentieth cen- 
tury, as Rome maintained it during the earlier years. 
Our destiny is hanging in the balance. Of one fact 
we may be sure : God will not suspend the laws of the 
universe in our behalf. If the United States neglects 
the Golden Rule and follows Rome and Greece and 



22 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Judea in the path of worldly glory and self-indulgence, 
she will meet the doom of these fallen nations. 

" Use not thy power in manner rude 
To rule for gain the multitude, 
Or thou shalt see that power depart 
To seek some holier heart." 

This is a dark picture; but if at this turning point 
in our history we adopt a worldly policy, a starless and 
an endless night awaits us. 

We expect a Letter issue for our Kepublic. We did 
not seek tliis war or dream of the conquest of the 
Philippines. These islands are a responsibility provi- 
dentially thrust upon us. Moreover, if we are gov- 
erned by Christian motives and remain loyal to the 
Golden Rule we can defend our conduct thus far. 
Anti-imi)erialists characterize the President's main- 
tenance of order in the Philippines by force as despot- 
ism; they declare that we violate the Declaration of In- 
dependence by governing peoples against their will. 
If we must have the consent of all the governed, or even 
of a majority of them, to make laws valid, there is not a 
binding law upon our statute-books. The voters in the 
United States number less than one-fifth of the popu- 
lation. Senator Hoar sees the inconsistency of our 
present representative system of government, and de- 
mands suffrage for women as well as for men. 
The demand is just, and in due time justice will prevail. 
But even with equal sufi^rage, our people will still be 
governed by a minority; as less than half the people 
will then be voters. We can, however, readily and 
fairly explain this anomaly in the Republic by saying 
that the children are serving their apprenticeship to 
free institutions, and that they will come to rulership 
in due time. But the American boy of nine knows 
more about republican institutions than the average 
Filipino at thirty. If, therefore, it is right to make this 



JAMES W. BASHFOED 23 

boy wait a dozen years longer for the suffrage, do we 
violate the principles of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence in asking the Filipinos to serve a similar appren- 
ticeship? If only we adhere to our fundamental pur- 
pose, not to keep these children in permanent subjec- 
tion, our actions thus far are in accordance, not only 
with the Declaration of Independence, but with that 
infinitely higher law, the Golden Kule. 

We must not, however, make the condition for the 
admission of these islanders to self-government too high 
and rigid. The best way for a people to learn self- 
government is by exercising it and meeting the results 
of their choices. The Filipinos have a right even to 
their mistakes; and we should be patient with them 
while they repeat some of the blunders and crimes 
which we have committed on our way to self-control. 
We, who butchered the Indians and banished Quakers 
and hung witches and are still burning negroes, ought 
not to set up too high a standard of external order for a 
half-civilized people. 

If we can learn the great art of rulership, namely, 
to rule ourselves; if we presently admit the Filipinos to 
participation in our government, or else establish them 
in a government of their own ; if we dare to inaugurate 
the diplomacy of the twentieth century by manly sin- 
cerity and good-will toward other peoples; if we have 
the sublime faith and courage to apply the Golden 
Eule of love to international affairs, as our Puritan 
fathers applied the iron rule of righteousness to na- 
tional affairs, we shall become that happy people whose 
God is the Lord. We dare to prophesy this golden age 
for America because we believe that Christ lives in 
the hearts of the common people. Unselfishness and 
brotherliness are growing forces in the United States. 
Let us serve the world as Christ saved the world, and 
we can no more fail in our providential tasks than 
Christ himself could fail. 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 
PARTISANSHIP AND PATRIOTISM 

[From a speech delivered before the Middlesex Club, Boston, 
Mass., AprU 27, 1898.] 

Paetisanship should be a method of patriotism. 
He who is a partisan merely for the sake of spoils is a 
buccaneer. He who is a partisan merely for the sake 
of a party name, is a ghost of the past among living 
events. He who is merely the partisan of an organiza- 
tion is only a pebble in the sling of a boss. But he who 
is the partisan of principle is a prince of citizenship. 
To-day the horizon's rim flames red with war. It is no 
time for partisanship, say men. Aye! it is the hour for 
the supremcst partisanship — it is the hour for the par- 
tisanship of patriotism. It is the hour when all who 
differ on methods for the Republic's ordinary welfare 
perceive, at last, an issue so immense that, disagreeing 
still, they still agree. It is an hour when men who 
thought that they hated each other at the ballot-box 
will lind that they love each other on the battle-field. 

In a Republic nothing is so necessary as to know that, 
after all, the ultimate object of each citizen is the same 
— the welfare of the nation and the glory of the flag. 
When we place a noble motive in an adversary's breast 
we have prepared the way for reason. You cannot 
argue with a prejudice. Thought is ineffectual against 
the heart of hate. Class knows no influence but arro- 
gance or revenge. And sometimes it is good that the 
lightnings of some vast emergency should clear the 

34 



ALBERT J. BEVEEIDGE 25 

heavy air and reveal us all as brothers, reveal us all 
as the partisans of patriotism — reveal the flag, still 
floating as the emblem of common love, and not the 
ensign of internecine hate. It is good that an hour so 
dread shall strike that, in its silence. Fate can hear in 
the heart-beats of a united people this sentiment of 
destiny — '' Our country — may she ever be right ! But, 
right or wrong, our country." To-day the thunder of 
our gims in a conflict for civilization -u-ill be a blessing 
and a benediction to the Kepublic, if we forget not 
those principles upon which the weKare, the honor, and 
the destiny of the nation must depend in years to come. 
For in the light of battle our political enemies will 
behold us as their brothers, and as brothers we mil 
reason together. And so it is that the day of foreign 
war brings the season of sweet reasonableness to 
ourselves. 

AVhat should be the policy of this war? 'WTiat will 
be its result? The geography of the globe answers the 
first question; the vigor of the American people an- 
swers the second. TTe are at war with Spain. There- 
fore our field of operations is not confined to Cuba. 
It is om- military duty to strike her at her weakest point 
before we strike her at her stronger points. Cuba must 
fall into our hands, but that will be only when Spain is 
conquered. Our war-ships to-day surround Cuba ; our 
armies are massing for Cuba. And yet Cuba will be 
the last to fall. In the Pacific is the true field of our 
earliest operations. There Spain has an island empire, 
the Philippine archipelago. It is poorly defended. 
Spain's best ships are on the Atlantic. In the Pacific 
the United States have a powerful squadron. The 
Philippines are logically our first target. And when 
the Pacific fleet of Spain is destroyed, not only is Spain 
beaten to her knees by the loss of the Philippines, 
which would necessarily follow, but San Francisco and 
Portland are at the same time rendered safe. It is not 



26 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Cuba we must conquer — it is Spain. "We must never 
lose sight of the main objective — to bring an early 
peace by conquering the enemy. We must strike the 
most vulnerable points of that enemy. We must sail 
to meet the enemy — not wait for him to come. These 
were the methods and maxims of Grant. And al- 
though not a gun has yet been fired, I predict that these 
methods of vitality and common-sense will be those of 
our glorious President — the fit successor of Ulysses S. 
Grant, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy 
of the Republic. 

The ultimate result we can leave to the wisdom of 
events. Victory Avill be ours — that we know this mo- 
ment, though no shot has yet been fired. And in that 
victory I see a blessing, not only for the people of Cuba, 
but for the oppressed of the Philippines — for the en- 
slaved wherever floats Spain's saffron flag. And in 
freeing peoples, perishing and oppressed, our country's 
l)lessing will also come; for profit follows righteous- 
ness, saitli the IToly Writ. 

The first gun of our war for civilization will be also 
the morning gun of the new day in the Republic's im- 
perial career. We wage no war of conquest. We go 
forth to fight for humanity ; but where American blood 
establishes liberty and law in any land, the American 
people will see that that blood is not shed in vain. 
AVhere the Stars and Stripes once float is forever sacred 
soil. Events, which are the arguments of God, are 
stronger than words, which are the arguments of man. 
AVe are the allies of events and the comrades of ten- 
dency in the great day of which the dawn is breaking. 
In the name of labor to be employed in clothing and 
feeding new peoples and new lands, we welcome it. In 
the name of capital, rusting in idleness, to be quickened 
into develo]iing the resources of our commerce, we wel- 
come it. In the name of a congested industrial situa- 
tion to be relieved by the industrial expansion of Amer- 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 27 

ican civilization, we welcome it. In the name of the 
mighty minds of every party and of every English- 
speaking land whose dream we now go forth to realize, 
we welcome the golden dawn of the Republic's full- 
grown manliood. 

MARCH OF THE FLAG 

[From a speech delivered at Indianapolis, September 16, 1898.] 

Fellow-Citizens: It is a noble land that God has 
given us; a land that can feed and clothe the world; 
a land whose coast lines would enclose half the coun- 
tries of Europe ; a land set like a sentinel between the 
two imperial oceans of the globe, a greater England 
with a nobler destiny. It is a mighty people that He 
has planted on this soil; a people sprung from the most 
masterful blood of history; a people perpetually re- 
vitalized by the virile, man-producing working-folk of 
all the earth; a people imperial by virtue of their 
power, by right of their institutions, by authority of 
their heaven-directed purposes — the propagandists and 
not the misers of liberty. It is a glorious history our 
God has bestowed upon His chosen people; a history 
whose key-note was struck by Liberty Bell; a history 
heroic with faith in our mission and our future ; a his- 
tory of statesmen who flung the boundaries of the Re- 
public out into unexplored lands and savage wilder- 
nesses; a history of soldiers who carried the flag across 
the blazing deserts and through the ranks of hostile 
mountains, even to the gates of sunset; a history of a 
multiplying people who overran a continent in half a 
century; a history of prophets who saw the conse- 
quences of evils inherited from the past, and of martyrs 
who died to save us from them; a history divinely log- 
ical, in the process of whose tremendous reasoning we 
find ourselves to-day. 



28 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

This question is larger than a party question. It is 
an American question. It is a world question. Shall 
the American people continue their resistless march 
toward the commercial supremacy of the world ? Shall 
free institutions broaden their blessed reign as the chil- 
(h-en of liberty wax in strength, until the empire of our 
principles is established over the hearts of all mankind? 
Have we no mission to perform, no duty to discharge 
to oiu- fellow-man? Has the Almighty Father en- 
dowed us with gifts beyond our deserts and marked us 
as the people of His peculiar favor, merely to rot in our 
own selfishness, as men and nations must who take 
cowardice for their companion and self for their deity 
— as China has, as India has, as Egypt has? Shall we 
be as the man who had one talent and hid it, or as he 
who had ten talents and used them until they gTew to 
riches? And shall we reap the reward that waits on our 
discharge of our high duty as the sovereign power of 
earth ; shall we occupy new markets for what our farm- 
ers raise, new markets for what our factories make, new 
markets for what our merchants sell, new markets for 
what our ships shall carry? Shall we avail ourselves of 
new sources of supply of what we do not raise or make, 
so that what are luxuries to-day will be necessities to- 
mori'ow? Shall our commerce be encouraged until, 
with Oceanica, the Orient and the world, American 
trade shall be the imperial trade of the entire globe? 

Our possessions shall not be robbed of the honor due 
them, nor the Republic of what our statesmen have 
won for their country. For McKinley is continuing 
the policy that Jefferson began, Monroe continued, 
Seward advanced, Grant promoted, Harrison cham- 
pioned, and the growth of the Republic has demanded. 
Hawaii is ours; Porto Rico is ours; at the prayer of 
its people Cuba will finally be ours; in the islands of the 
East, even to the gates of Asia, coaling-stations are to be 
ours; at the very least the flag of a liberal government 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 29 

is to float over the Philippines, and I pray God it may 
be the banner that Taylor unfurled in Texas and Fre- 
mont carried to the coast. And the burning question 
is, whether the American people will accept the gifts of 
events; whether they will proceed upon the lines of 
national development surveyed by the statesmen of our 
past; or whether, for the first time, the American 
people doubt their mission, question fate, prove apos- 
tate to the spirit of their race, and halt the ceaseless 
march of free institutions. 

The opposition tells us that we ought not to govern a 
people without their consent. I answer: The rule of 
liberty that all just government derives its authority 
from the consent of the governed, applies only to those 
who are capable of self-govermnent. We govern the 
Indians without their consent; we govern our Terri- 
tories without their consent; we govern our children 
without their consent. Would not the people of the 
Philippines prefer the just, humane, dualizing govern- 
ment of this Republic to the savage, bloody rule of 
pillage and extortion from which we have rescued 
them? Shall we turn these people back to the reeking 
hands from which we took them? Shall we abandon 
them to their fate, with the wolves of conquest all 
about them — with Germany, Russia, France, even 
Japan, hungering for them ? Shall we save them from 
those nations, to give them a self-rule of tragedy ?^ It 
would be like giving a razor to a babe and telling it to 
shave itself. It would be like giving a typewriter to 
an Esquimau and telling him to publish one of the 
great dailies of the world. This proposition of the 
opposition makes the Declaration of Independence pre- 
posterous, like the reading of Job's lamentations at a 
wedding. 

They ask us how we will govern these new posses- 
sions. I answer: Out of local conditions and the 
necessities of the case methods of government will 



30 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

grow. If England can govern foreign lands, so can 
America. If Germany can govern foreign lands, so 
can America. If they can supervise protectorates, so 
can America. Why is it more difficult to administer 
Hawaii than Xew Mexico or California^ Both had a 
savage and an alien population ; both were more remote 
from the seat of government when they came under 
our dominion than Hawaii is to-day. Will you say by 
your vote that American ability to govern has decayed ; 
that a century's experience in self-rule has failed of a 
result? Remember that we do but what our fathers 
did — we but pitch the tents of liberty further west- 
ward, further southward — we only continue the march 
of the flag. 

Fellow -Americans, yonder at Bunker Hill and 
Yorktown God's providence was above us. At New 
Orleans and on ensanguined seas His hand sustained 
us. Lincoln was His minister and His was the Altar of 
Freedom the boys in blue set on a hundred battle- 
fields. His power directed Dewey in the East and de- 
livered the Spanish fleet into our hands on the eve of 
Liberty's natal day, as He delivered the elder Armada 
into the hands of our English sires two centuries ago. 
His great purposes are revealed in the progress of the 
flag, which surpasses the intentions of Congresses and 
Cabinets, and leads us like a holier pillar of cloud by 
day and a pillar of fire by night into situations unfore- 
seen by finite wisdom, and duties unexpected by the 
unprophetic heart of selfishness. We cannot fly from.| 
our world-duties; it is ours to execute the purpose of a! 
fate that has driven us to be greater than our small 
intentions. Wc cannot retreat from any soil where 
Providence has imfurled our banner; it is ours to save 
that soil for liberty and ci\alization. For liberty and 
civilization and God's promise fulfilled, the flag must 
henceforth be the symbol and the sign to all mankind. 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 31 

TEE REPUBLIC'S TASK 

[From a speech delivered at Philadelphia, February 15, 1899.] 

God did not make the American people the mighti- 
est human force of all time simply to feed and die. 
He did not give om- race the brain of organization and 
heart of domination to no purpose and no end. Xo. 
He has given us a task equal to our talents. He has ap- 
pointed for us a destiny equal to our endowments. He 
has made us the lords of civilization that we may ad- 
minister civilization. Such administration is needed 
in Cuba. Such administration is needed in the Philip- 
pines. And Cuba and the Philippines are in our 
hands. 

If it be said that, at home, tasks as large as our 
strength await us — ■that politics are to be purified, want 
relieved, municipal government perfected, the rela- 
tions of capital and labor better adjusted, I answer: 
Has England's discharge of her duty to the world cor- 
rupted her politics? Are not her cities like Birming- 
ham the municipal models upon which we build our 
reforms? Is her labor question more perplexed than 
ours? Considering the newness of our country, is it as 
bad as ours? And is not the like true of Holland — 
even of Germany? 

And what of England? England's immortal glory 
is not Agincourt or TTaterloo. It is not her merchan- 
dise or commerce. It is Austraha, Xew Zealand and 
Africa reclaimed. It is India redeemed. It is Egvpt, 
mummy of the nations, touched into modem life. Eng- 
land's imperishable renown is in English science throt- 
tling the plagaie in Calcutta, English law administering 
order in Bombay. English energy planning an indus- 
trial civilization from Cairo to the Cape, and English 
discipline creating soldiers, men, and finally citizens. 



32 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

perhaps even out of the fellaheen of the dead land of 
the Pharaohs. And yet the liberties of Englishmen 
were never so secure as now. And that which is Eng- 
land's undying fame has also been her infinite profit, so 
sure is duty golden in the end. 

And what of America? With the twentieth cen- 
tury the real task and true life of the Kepublic begins. 
And we arc prepared. AVe have learned restraint from 
a hundred years of self-control. We are instructed by 
the experience of others. We are advised and inspired 
by present example. And our work awaits us. The 
dominant notes in American history have thus far been 
self-government and internal improvement. But 
these were not ends; they were means. They were 
modes of preparation. The dominant notes in Ameri- 
can life henceforth mil be administration and world- 
improvement. It is the arduous but splendid mission 
of our race. It is ours to govern in the name of civil- 
ized liberty. It is ours to administer order and law in 
the name of human progress. It is ours to chasten that 
we may be kind. It is ours to cleanse that we may 
save. It is ours to build that free institutions may 
finally enter and abide. It is ours to bear the torch of 
Christianity where midnight has reigned for a thou- 
sand years. It is ours to reinforce that thin red line 
which constitutes the outposts of civilization all around 
the world. 

If it be said that this is vague talk of an indefinite 
future we answer that it is the specific programme of the 
present hour. Ci^nl government is to be perfected in 
Porto Pico. The future of Cuba is to be worked out 
by the wisdom of events. Ultimately annexation is as 
certain as that island's existence. Even if Cubans are 
capable of self-government, every interest points to 
union. Wo and they may blunder forward and tim- 
idly try devices of doubt. But in the end Jefferson's 
desire will be fulfilled, and Cuba will be a part of the 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 33 

great Eepublic. But whatever befalls, definite and 
immediate work awaits ns. Harbors are to be dredged, 
sanitation established, highways built, railroads con- 
structed, postal service organized, common schools 
opened, all by or under the government of the Ameri- 
can Republic. 

The Philippines are ours forever. Let faint hearts 
anoint their fears with the thought that some day 
American administration and American duty there 
may end. But they never will end. England's occu- 
pation of Egypt was to be temporary ; but events, which 
are the commands of God, are making it permanent. 
And now God has given us this Pacific empire for civil- 
ization. The first ofiice of administration is order. 
Order must be established throughout the archipelago. 
The spoiled child, Aguinaldo, may not stay the march 
of civilization. Rebellion against the authority of the 
flag must be crushed without delay, for hesitation en- 
courages revolt; and without anger, for the turbulent 
children know not what they do. And then civiliza- 
tion must be organized, administered, and maintained. 
Law and justice must rule where savagery, tryanny, 
and caprice have rioted. The people must be taught 
the art of orderly and continuous industry. A hun- 
dred wildernesses are to be subdued. Unpenetrated 
regions must be explored. TJnviolated valleys must 
be tilled. Unmastered forests must be felled. Un- 
riven mountains must be torn asunder and their 
riches of gold and iron and ores of price must be 
delivered to the world. We are to do in the Philip- 
pines what Holland does in Java, or England in New 
Zealand or the Cape, or else work out new methods and 
new results of our own, nobler than any the world has 
seen. All this is not indefinite ; it is the very specifica- 
tion of duty. 

The frail of faith declare that those peoples are 
not fitted for citizenship. It is not proposed to make 



34 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

them citizens. Those who see disaster in every forward 
step of the Kepublic prophesy that Philippine labor 
will ovemm our country and starve our workmgmen. 
But the Javanese have not so overinin Holland. 
New Zealand's Malays, Australia's bushmen, Africa's 
Kaffirs, Zulus, and Hottentots, and India's millions of 
surplus labor have not so overrun England. Whips of 
scorpions could not lash the Filipinos to this land of 
fervid enterprise, sleepless industry, and rigid order. 

Let the flag advance; the word " retreat " is not in 
the Constitution. Let the Eepublic govern as condi- 
tions demand; the Constitution does not benumb its 
brain nor palsy its hand. 



OUR DUTY IN THE EAST 

[From a speech delivered in tlie United States Senate, January 9, 

1900.] 

Mk. President, this question is deeper than any 
question of party politics; deeper than any question of 
the isolated party of our country, even; deeper even 
than any question of constitutional power. God has 
not been preparing the English-speaking and Teutonic 
peoples for a thousand years for nothing but vain and 
idle self -contemplation and self -admiration. No ! He 
has made us the master-organizei's of the world to estab- 
lish system where chaos reigns. He has given us the 
spirit of progTess to overwhelm the forces of reaction 
throughout the earth. He has made us adepts in gov- 
ernment that we may administer government among 
savage and senile peoples. 

AVere it not for such a force as this the world would 
relapse into barbarism and night. And of all our race 
He has marked the American people as His chosen 
nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 35 

This is the divine mission of America, and it holds for 
us all the profit, all the glory, all the happiness possi- 
ble to man. We are trustees of the world's progress; 
guardians of its righteous peace. The judgment of the 
Master is upon us — " Ye have been faithful over a 
few things; I "udll make you ruler over many things." 

What shall history say of us? Shall it say that we 
renounced that holy trust, left the savage to his base 
condition, the wilderness to the reign of waste, deserted 
duty, abandoned glory, forgot our sordid profit even, 
because we feared our strength and read the charter of 
our powers with the doubter's eye and the quibbler's 
mind? Shall it say that, called by events to captain 
and command the proudest, ablest, purest race of his- 
tory in history's noblest work, we declined that great 
commission? Our fathers would not have had it so. 
No! They founded no paralytic government, incapa- 
ble of the simplest acts of administration. They 
planned no sluggard people, passive while the world's 
work calls them. They established no reactionary na- 
tion. They unfurled no retreating flag. 

That flag has never paused in its onward march. 
Who dares halt it now — now, when history's largest 
events are carrying it for^vard — now, when we are at 
last_ one people, strong enough for any task, great 
enough for any glory destiny can bestow ? How comes 
it that our first century closes with the process of con- 
solidating the American people into a unit just accom- 
plished, and quick upon the stroke of that great hour 
presses upon us our world-opportunity, world-duty, and 
world-glory, which none but a people welded into an 
indivisible nation can achieve or perform? 

Blind, indeed, is he who sees not the hand of God 
in events so vast, so harmonious, so benign. Keac- 
tionary, indeed, is the mind that perceives not that this 
vital people is the strongest of the saving forces of the 
world; that our place, therefore, is at the head of the 



36 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

constructing and redeeming nations of the earth, and 
that to stand aside while events march on is a sur- 
render of our interests, a betrayal of our duty, as blind 
as it is base. Craven, indeed, is the heart that fears to 
perform a work so golden and so noble ; that dares not 
win a glory so immortal. 

The Philippines are ours forever. We will not re- 
pudiate our duty in the archipelago. We will not 
abandon our opportunity in the Orient. We will not 
renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, 
under God, of the civilization of the world. And we 
will move forward to our work, not howling our re- 
grets, like slaves whipped to their burdens, but with 
gratitude for a task worthy of our strength, and 
thanksgiving to Almighty God that He has marked 
us as His chosen people, henceforth to lead in the re- 
generation of the world. 

This island empire is the last land left in all the 
oceans. If it should prove a mistake to abandon it, 
the blunder once made would be irretrievable. If it 
proves a mistake to hold it, the error can be corrected 
when we will; every other progressive nation stands 
ready to relieve us. 

Do you tell me that it will cost us money? When 
did Americans ever measure duty by financial stand- 
ards? Do you tell me of the tremendous toil required 
to overcome the vast difficulties of our task? What 
mighty work for the world, for humanity, even for 
ourselves, has ever been done with ease? Even our 
bread must we eat by the sweat of our faces. Why are 
we charged with power such as no people ever knew, if 
we are not to use it in a work such as no people ever 
wrought? Who will dispute the divine meaning of the 
fable of the talents? Do you remind me of the precious 
blood that must be shed, the lives that must be given, 
the broken hearts of loved ones for their slain? And 
this is indeed a heavier price than all combined. 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 37 

And yet, as a nation, every historic duty we have 
done, every achievement we have accomplished, has 
been by the sacrifice of our noblest sons. Every holy 
memory that glorifies the flag is of those heroes who 
have died that its onward march might not be stayed. 
It is the nation's dearest lives yielded for the flag that 
makes it dear to us; it is the nation's most precious 
blood poured out for it that makes it precious to us. 
That flag is woven of heroism and grief, of the bravery 
of men and women's tears, of righteousness and battle, 
of sacrifice and anguish, of trimnph and of glory. It is 
these which make our flag a holy thing. Who would 
tear from that sacred banner the glorious legends of a 
single battle where it has waved on land or sea? What 
son of a soldier of the flag, whose father fell beneath it 
on any field, would surrender that proud record for 
the heraldry of a king. 

In the cause of civilization, in the service of the Re- 
public anwhere on earth, Americans consider wounds 
the noblest decorations man can win, and count the giv- 
ing of their lives a glad and precious duty. Pray God 
that spirit may never fail. Pray God that the time may 
never come when mammon and the love of ease shall 
so debase our blood that we will fear to shed it for the 
flag and its imperial destiny. Pray God the time may 
never come when American heroism is but a legend, 
like the story of the Cid, American faith in our mission 
and our might a dream dissolved, and the glory of our 
mighty race departed. And that time will never come. 
We will renew our youth at the fountain of new and 
glorious deeds. We will exalt our reverence for the 
flag by carrying it to a noble future as well as by re- 
membering its ineffable past. Its immortality will not 
pass, because everywhere and always we will acknowl- 
edge and discharge the solemn responsibilities our 
sacred flag in its deepest meaning puts upon us. 

Mr. President and Senators, adopt the resolution 



38 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

offered that peace may quickly come and that we may 
begin our saving, regenerating, and uplifting work. 
Adopt it, and this bloodshed will cease when these de- 
luded children of our islands learn that this is the final 
action of the representatives of the American people in 
Congress assembled. Keject it, and the world, history, 
and the American people will know where to forever 
fix the awful responsibility for the consequences that 
will surely follow such failure to do our manifest duty. 
How dare we delay when our soldiers' blood is flowing? 



.WILLIAM J. BRYAN 
ANNEXATION 

[Delivered before the Duckworth Club, Cincinnati, O. , January 6, 

1899.] 

The sentiment of the people upon any great ques- 
tion must be measured during the days of deliberation 
and not during the hours of excitement. A good man 
will sometimes be engaged in a fight, but it is not rea- 
sonable to expect a judicial opinion from him until he 
has had time to wash the blood off his face. I have 
seen a herd of mild-eyed, gentle kine transformed into 
infiu'iated beasts by the sight and scent of blood, and I 
have seen the same animals quiet and peaceful again in 
a few hours. We have much of the animal in us still, 
in spite of our civilizing processes. It is not unnatural 
that our people should be more sanguinary immedi- 
ately after a battle than they were before, but it is only 
a question of time when reflection will restore the con- 
ditions which existed before this nation became en- 
gaged in the war with Spain. When men are excited 
they talk about what they can do; when they are calm 
they talk about what they ought to do. If the President 
rightly interpreted the feelings of the people when they 
were intoxicated by a military triumph, we shall appeal 
from " Philip drunk to Philip sober." 

. The forcible annexation of the Philippine Islands 
would violate a principle of American public law so 
deeply embedded in the American mind that, until a 
year ago, no public man would have suggested it. It is 

39 



40 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

difficult to overestimate the influence which such a 
change in oiu- national policy would produce on the 
character of our people. Our opponents ask: Is our na- 
tion not great enough to do what England, Germany, 
and Holland are doing? They inquire : Can we not gov- 
ern colonies as well as they? Whether we can govern 
colonies as well as other countries can is not material; 
the real question is whether we can, in one hemisphere, 
develop the theory that governments derive their just 
power from the consent of the governed, and at the same 
time inaugurate, support, and defend, in the other 
hemisphere, a government which derives its authority 
entirely from superior force. 

And if these two ideas of government cannot live 
together, which one shall we choose? To defend forci- 
ble annexation on the ground that we are carrying out 
a religious duty is worse than absurd. The Bible 
teaches us that it is more blessed to give than to receive, 
while the colonial policy is based upon the doctrine that 
it is more blessed to take than to leave. Annexation 
cannot be defended upon the ground that we shall find 
a pecuniary profit in the policy. The advantage which 
may come to a few individuals who hold the offices or 
who secure valuable franchises cannot properly be 
weighed against the money expended in governing the 
Philippines, because the money expended will be paid 
by those who pay the taxes. 

We are not yet in position to determine whether the 
people of the United States, as a whole, will bring back 
from the Philippines as much as they send there. 
There is an old saying that it is not profitable to buy a 
lawsuit. Our nation may learn by experience that it is 
not wise to purchase the right to conquer a people. 
Spain under compulsion gives us a quitclaim to the 
Philippines in return for"$20,000,000, but she does 
not agree to warrant and defend our title as against the 
Filipinos. To buy land is one thing, to buy people is 



WILLIAM J. BRYAN 41 

another. Land is inanimate and makes no resistance 
to a transfer of title ; the people are animate and some- 
times desire a voice in their own affairs. But whether, 
measured by dollars and cents, the conquest of the 
Philippines would prove profitable or expensive, it will 
certainly prove embarrassing to those who still hold to 
the doctrines which underlie a republic. Military rule 
is antagonistic to our theory of government. The 
arguments which are used to defend it in the Philip- 
pines may be used to excuse it in the United States. 
Under military rule much must be left to the discretion 
of the military governor, and this can only be justified 
upon the theory that the governor knows more than 
the people whom he governs, is better acquainted with 
their needs than they are themselves, is entirely in sym- 
pathy with them and is thoroughly honest and unselfish 
in his desire to do them good. Such a combination of 
wisdom, integTity, and love is difficult to find, and the 
Republican party will enter upon a hard task when it 
starts out to select suitable military governors for our 
remote possessions. 

If we enter upon a colonial policy we must expect to 
hear the command " Silence! " issuing with increasing 
emphasis from the imperialists. When the discussion 
of fundamental principles is attempted in the United 
States, if a member of Congress attempts to criticise 
any injustice perpetrated by a government official 
against a helpless people, he will be warned to keep 
silent, lest his criticism encourage resistance to Amer- 
ican authority in the Orient. If an orator on the 
Pourth of July dares to speak of inalienable rights, 
or refers with commendation to the manner in which 
our forefathers resisted taxation without representa- 
tion, he mil be warned to keep silent, lest his utter- 
ances excite rebellion among distant subjects. If we 
adopt a colonial policy and pursue the course which 
excited the revolution of 1776, we must muffle the 



42 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

tones of the old Liberty Bell, and commune in whispers 
when we praise the patriotism of our forefathers. We 
cannot afford to destroy the Declaration ofA Indepen- 
dence; we cannot afford to erase from our Constitutions, 
State and national, the bill of rights; we have not time 
to examine the libraries of the nation and purge them 
of the essays, the speeches, and the books\that defend 
the doctrine that law is the crystallization of public 
opinion, rather than an emanation from physical power. 
But, even if we could destroy every vestige of the 
laws which are the outgrowth of the immortal law 
penned by Jeffers^i:^, "i^'^we ccruld obliterate every 
written word that has been inspired by the idea that 
this is a " government of the people, by the people and 
for the people," we could not tear from the heart of the 
human race the hope which the American Republic 
has planted there. The impassioned appeal, " Give me 
liberty or give me death," still echoes around the world. 
In the future, as in the past, the desire to be free will 
be stronger than the desire to enjoy a.mgre physical ex- 
istence. The conflict between right and might will 
continue here and everywhere, until a day is reached 
when the love of money shall no longer sear the na- 
tional conscience and hypocrisy no longer hide the 
hideous features of avarice behind the mask of 
philanthropy. 



IMPERIALISM 

[Delivered at Savannah, Ga., December 13, 1898.] 

I MAY be in error, but I believe our nation is in 
greater danger just now than Cuba. Our people de- 
fended Cuba against foreign arms; now they must de- 
fend themselves and their country against a foreign 
idea — the colonial idea of European nations. The im- 



WILLIAM J. BRTATT 43 

perialistic idea is directly antagonistic to the idea and 
ideals which have been cherished by the American 
people since the signing of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. Our nation must give up any intention of 
entering upon a colonial policy such as that pursued by 
European countries, or it must abandon the doctrine 
that governments derive their just powers from the 
consent of the governed. 

We may believe that governments come up from the 
people or we may believe that governments come down 
to the people from those who possess the heaviest can- 
nons and the largest ships, but we cannot advocate both 
doctrines. To borrow a Bible quotation, " A house 
divided against itself cannot stand." Paraphrasing 
Lincoln's declaration, I may add that this nation can- 
not endure half-republic and half-colony — half-free 
and half-vassal. Our form of government, our tradi- 
tions, our present interests and our future welfare, all 
forbid our entering upon a career of conquest. 
/ Jefferson has been quoted in support of imperialism, 
fcut our opponents must distinguish between imperial- 
ism and expansion ; they must also distinguish between 
expansion in the western hemisphere and an expan- 
sion that involves us in the quarrels of Europe and the 
Orient. They must still further distinguish between 
expansion which secures contiguous territory for 
future settlement, and expansion which secures us alien 
races for future subjugation. Jefferson favored the 
annexation of necessary contiguous territory on the 
North American continent, but he was opposed to wars 
of conquest, and expressly condemned the acquiring of 
remote territory. 

The fight should not be made against the ratification 
of the treaty. I would prefer another plan. If the 
treaty is rejected negotiations must be renewed, and 
instead of settling the question according to our own 
ideas we must settle it by diplomacy, with the possi- 



44 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

bility of international complications. It will be easier 
to end the war at once by ratifying the treaty, and then 
deal with the subject in our own way. The issue should 
be presented directly by a resolution of Congress de- 
claring the policy of the nation upon this subject. 

The President in his message says that our only pur- 
pose in taking possession of Cuba is to establish a stable 
government and then turn that government over to the 
people of Cuba. CongTess should reaffirm this purpose 
in regard to Cuba and assert the same purpose in regard 
to the Philippines and Porto Rico. Such a resolution 
would make a clear-cut issue between the doctrine of 
self-government and the doctrine of imperialism.' We 
should reserve a harbor and coaling-station in Porto 
Rico and in the Philippines in return for services ren- 
dered; and I think we would be justified in asking the 
same concession from Cuba. In Porto Rico, where the 
people have as yet expressed no desire for an inde- 
pendent government, we might with propriety declare 
our willingness to annex the island if the citizens desire 
annexation ; but the Philippine Islands are too far away 
and their people too different from ours to be annexed 
to the United States, even if they desired it. 



FUTURE OF THE PHILIPPINES 

[From a speech before the Good Government Club, Ann Arbor, 
Mich., February 18, 1899.] 

The President in his Boston speech has declared 
that the future of the Philippines is in the hands of the 
American people. This is all that has been contended 
for by tlie opponents of the colonial policy outlined by 
those who have demanded the forcible and permanent 
annexation of the Philippine Islands. If the matter is 
in the hands of the American people, then it is a sub- 






WILLIAM J. BRYAN 45 

ject for discussion by the American people, and the 
only question to be considered and decided is whether 
the permanent retention of the Philippine Islands is 
desirable. And in considering what is desirable, we 
must consider what is best for the people of the United 
States, and what is best for the Filipinos, Those who 
oppose the colonial policy deny that the adoption of 
such a policy by this nation would be beneficial either 
to the United States or to the alien race over which our 
sovereignty would be extended. 

The sooner the question is settled the better. It is 
putting the cart before the horse to say that the nation 
cannot reveal its purpose until the Filipinos lay down 
their arms. If the nation would declare its intention 
to establish a stable and independent government in the 
Philippines and then leave that government in the 
hands of the people of the islands, hostilities would be 
suspended at once and further bloodshed would be 
avoided. What would our colonists have thought of a 
demand upon the part of England that we first lay 
down our arms and surrender to the king, and then 
trust to the decision he would make? Now, that the 
treaty has been ratified and Spain eliminated from the 
question, the American people are free to take such 
action as the circumstances require. Shall our nation 
enter upon a career of conquest and substitute the doc- 
trine of force for the power of example and the influ- 
ence of counsel? Our forefathers fought for inde- 
pendence under a banner upon which was inscribed the 
motto, " Millions for defence, but not one cent for 
tribute." And so those who to-day not only desire 
American independence, but are willing to encourage 
the idea of independence and self-government in other 
races, can fight under a banner upon which is inscribed 
a similar motto: " Millions for defence, but not one 
cent for conquest."} 

(Some of the advocates of a colonial policy have 



46 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

sowglit to lay upon those who opposed the ratification 
of the treaty the responsibility for the bloodshed 
around Manila. While I believed and still believe 
that it was better to ratify the treaty and make the 
fight for Philippine independence before the American 
people, rather than through diplomatic negotiations 
with Spain, I deny that the Senators who opposed rati- 
fication were in any way responsible for the commence- 
ment of hostilities. The responsibility rests, not upon 
those who opposed the treaty, but upon those who re- 
fused to disclose the nation's purpose, and left the 
Filipinos to believe that their fight against Spain in- 
stead of bringing them independence had only brought 
them a change of masters. It was the desire to be in- 
dependent that led the Filipinos to resist American 
authority, and their desire for independence was not 
inspired by any American opposition to the terms of 
the treaty. ' 

It will be remembered that the Filipinos issued a 
declaration of independence last summer before the 
treaty was negotiated. Opposition to the treaty, there- 
fore, could not have caused a desire for independence 
which was expressed before the treaty was made. If 
it is wrong for anyone in this country to inspire in 
other races a desire for self-government the imperial- 
ists cannot confine their reproaches to the living. They 
must lay the blame upon American statesmen long 
since dead. Patrick Henry was responsible to some 
extent because the sentiments expressed in his speech 
have found a lodgement in the hearts of all the races. 
Washington must also be blamed, for when he drew 
his sword in defence of the rights of the colonists he 
gave inspiration to all similarly situated. Jefferson 
was largely to blame because the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, the work of his pen, has been an inspiration 
to the lovers of liberty in every clime. Abraham Lin- 
coln cannot escape his share of blame, if those are to 



WILLIAM J. BRYAN 47 

be blamed who bave aroused among the oppressed a 
desire for participation in the government under which 
they lived. When the great emancipator delivered his 
speech at Gettysburg and appealed to the people of the 
United States to so act that " a government of the 
people, for the people, and by the people shall not 
perish from the earth," he did more to stimulate the 
desire for self-government than has been done by any 
other public man in half a century. 

The American people cannot apply the European 
and monarchical doctrine of force in the subjugation 
and government of alien races, and at the same time 
stand forth as a defender of the principles embodied in 
our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. A 
man may live a double life when only one of his lives 
is known, but as soon as his duplicity becomes mani- 
fest to the world he can lead but one life and that the 
worst. As soon as we establisli two forms of govern- 
ment, one by consent in this country, and the other by 
force in Asia, we shall cease to have the influence of a 
republic and join the spoliation of helpless people 
under the pretence of conferring upon them unsought 
and undesired blessings. Independence for the Fili- 
pinos under a protectorate which will guard them from 
outside interference while they work out their destiny 
is consistent w^th American traditions, American his- 
tory and American interests, and the sooner this dec- 
laration is made the sooner will come the rewards 
assured to individuals and nations who strive to do 
good. 



48 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 



AMERICA'S MISSION 

[From a speech delivered at Washington Day banquet given by the 
Virginia Democratic Association at Washington, D. C, February 
22, 1899.] 

When the advocates of imperialism find it impos- 
sible to reconcile a colonial policy with the principles 
di our government or with the canons of morality; 
when they are unable to defend it upon the ground of 
religious duty or pecuniary profit, they fall back in 
helpless despair upon the assertion that it is destiny. 
" Suppose it does violate the Constitution," they say; 
"suppose it does break all the commandments; sup- 
pose it does entail upon the nation an incalculable 
expenditure of blood and money; it is destiny and we 
must submit." 

The people have not voted for imperialism; no na- 
tional convention has declared for it; no Congress has 
passed upon it. To whom, then, has the future been 
revealed^ Whence this voice of authority? We can 
all prophecy, but our prophecies are merely guesses, 
colored by our hopes and our surroundings. Man's 
opinion of what is to be is half wish and half environ- 
ment. Avarice paints destiny with a dollar mark be- 
fore it, militarism equips it with a sword. 

He is the best prophet who, recognizing the omnip- 
otence of truth, comprehends most clearly the great 
forces which are working out the progTess, not of one 
l)arty, not of one nation, but of the human race. His- 
tory is replete with ])redic'tions which once wore the 
hue of destiny, but which failed of fulfilment because 
those who uttered them saw too small an arc of the 
circle of events. When Abderrahman swept north- 
ward with his conquering hosts his imagination saw 
the Crescent triumphant throughout the world; but 



WILLIAM J. BRYAN 49 

destiny was not revealed until Charles Martel raised 
the cross above the battlefield of Tours and saved 
Europe from the sword of Mohammedanism, Wh'en 
Napoleon emerged victorious from Marengo, from 
Ulm, and from Austerlitz he thought himself the 
child of destiny; but destiny was not revealed until 
Bliicher's forces joined the army of Wellington and 
the vanquished Corsican began his melancholy march 
toward St. Helena. When the red-coats of George 
the Third routed the ISTew Englanders at Lexington 
and Bunker Hill there arose before the British sov- 
ereign visions of colonies taxed without representation 
and drained of their wealth by foreign-made laws, but 
destiny was not revealed until the surrender of Com- 
wallis completed the work begun at Independence 
Hall and ushered into existence a government deriv- 
ing its just powers from the consent of the governed. 

We have reached another crisis. The ancient doc- 
trine of imperialism, banished from our land more 
than a century ago, has recrossed the Atlantic and 
challenged democracy to mortal combat upon Amer- 
ican soil. Whether the Spanish war shall be known 
in history as a war for liberty or as a war of conquest; 
whether the principles of self-government shall be 
strengthened or abandoned; whether this nation shall 
remain a homogeneous republic or become a hetero- 
geneous empire — these questions must be answered by 
the American people — when they speak, and not until 
then, will destiny be revealed. Destiny is not a mat- 
ter of chance, it is a matter of choice ; it is not a thing 
to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. 'No one 
can see the end from the beginning, but every one can 
make his course an honorable one from beginning to 
end, by adhering to the right under all circumstances. 
AVhether a man steals much or little may depend upon 
his opportunities, but whether he steals at all depends 
upon his own volition. 



50 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

So with our nation. If we embark upon a career 
of conquest no one can tell how many islands we may 
be able to seize or how many races we may be able 
to subjugate, neither can any one estimate the cost, 
iramediate and remote, to the nation's purse and to 
the nation's character; but whether we shall enter up- 
on such a career is a question which the people have 
a right to decide for themselves. Unexpected events 
may retard or advance the nation's growth, but the 
nation's purpose determines its destiny. 

What is the nation's purpose? The main purpose 
of the founders of our government was to secure for 
themselves and for posterity the blessings of liberty, 
and that purpose has been faithfully followed up to 
this time. Our statesmen have opposed each other 
upon economic questions, but they have agreed in de- 
fending self-government as the controlling national 
idea. They have quarrelled among themselves over 
tariff and finance, but they have been united in their 
opposition to an entangling alliance with any Euro- 
pean power. 

Under this policy our nation has grown in numbers 
and in strength. Under this policy its beneficent in- 
fluence has encircled the globe. Under this policy 
the taxpayers have been spared the burden and the 
menace of a large military establishment and the 
young men have been taught the arts of peace rather 
then the science of war. On each returning Fourth 
of July our people have met to celebrate the signing 
of the Declaration of Independence; their hearts have 
renewed their vows to free institutions and their voices | 
have praised the forefathers whose wisdom and cour- 
age and patriotism made it possible for each succeed- 
ing generation to repeat the words, 

" My country, 'tis of thee, 
Sweet land of Liberty, 
Of thee I sing." 



WILLIAM J. BRYAN 51 

This sentiment was well-nigii universal until a year 
ago. It was to this sentiment that the Cuban in- 
surgents appealed ; it was this sentiment that impelled 
our people to enter into the war with Spain. Have 
the people so changed within a few short months that 
they are now willing to apologize for the War of the 
Eevolution and force upon the Filipinos the same sys- 
tem of government against which the colonists pro- 
tested with fire and sword? 

The hour of temptation has come, but temptations 
do not destroy, they merely test the strength of indi- 
viduals and nations; they are stumbling-blocks or 
stepping-stones, they lead to infamy or fame, accord- 
ing to the use made of them. Benedict Arnold and 
Ethan Allen serv^ed together in the Continental army 
and both were offered British gold. Arnold yielded 
to the temptation and made his name a synonym for 
treason; Allen resisted and lives in the affections of 
his countrymen. Our nation is tempted to depart 
from its " standard of morality " and adopt a policy 
of '"'criminal aggression." But, will it yield? 

If I mistake not the sentiment of the American peo- 
ple they will spurn the bribe of imperialism, and, by 
resisting temptation, win such a victory as has not 
been won since the battle of Yorktown. Let it be 
written of the United States: Behold a republic that 
took up arms to aid a neighboring people, struggling 
to be free ; a republic that, in the progress of the war, 
helped distant races whose wrongs were not in con- 
templation when hostilities began; a republic that, 
when peace was restored, turned a deaf ear to the clamo- 
rous voice of greed and to those borne down by the 
weight of a foreign yoke spoke the welcome words. 
Stand up ; be free — let this be the record made on his- 
tory's page, and the silent example of this republic, 
true to its principles in the hour of trial, will do more 
to extend the area of self-government and civilization 



52 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

tlian could be done by all tbe wars of conquest that 
we could wage in a generation. 

The forcible annexation of the Philippine Islands 
is not necessary to make the United States a world- 
power. For over ten decades our nation has been a 
world-power. During its brief existence it has ex- 
erted upon the human race an influence more potent 
for good than all the other nations of the earth com- 
bined, and it has exerted that influence without the 
use of sword or Gatling gun. Mexico and the repub- 
lics of Central and South America testify to the be- 
nign influence of our institutions, while Europe and 
Asia give evidence of the working of the leaven of 
self-government. In the gi'owth of democracy we ob- 
serve the triumphant march of an idea — an idea that 
would be weighted down rather than aided by the ar- 
mor and weapons })rofFered by imperialism. 

Much has been said of late about Anglo-Saxon civ- 
ilization. Far be it from me to detract from the ser- 
vice rendered to the world by the sturdy race whose 
language we speak. I'he union of the Angle and the 
Saxun formed a now and valuable type, but the process 
of race evolution was not completed when the Angle 
and the Saxon met. A still later type has appeared 
which is superior to any which has existed heretofore; 
and with this new tyi)e will come a higher civilization 
than any which has })receded it. Great has been the 
Greek, the Latin, the Slav, the Celt, the Teuton, and 
the Anglo-Saxon, but greater than any of these is the 
American, in whom are blended the virtues of them 
all. 

Civil and religious liberty, universal education and 
the right to participate, directly or through representa- 
tives chosen by himself, in all the affairs of govern- 
ment — these give to the American citizen an oppor- 
tunity and an inspiration which can be found nowhere 
else. Standing upon the vantage ground already 



WILLIAM J. BRYAN 53 

gained the American people can aspire to a grander 
destiny than has opened before any other race. An- 
glo-Saxon civilization has taught the individual to 
protect his own rights; American civilization will teach 
him to respect the rights of others. Anglo-Saxon 
civilization has taught the individual to take care of 
himself; American civilization, proclaiming the equal- 
ity of all before the law, will teach him that his own 
highest good requires the observance of the command- 
ment: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 
Anglo-Saxon civilization has, by force of arms, ap- 
plied the art of government to other races for the bene- 
fit of Anglo-Saxons; American civilization will, by the 
influence of example, excite in other races a desire for 
self-government and a determination to secure it. 
Anglo-Saxon civilization has carried its flag to every 
clime and defended it with forts and garrisons ; Amer- 
ican civilization will imprint its flag upon the hearts 
of all who long for freedom. To American civiliza- 
tion, all hail! 



DONELSOX CAFFERY 

[E^racts from a speech delivered in the Senate of the United 
States, January 6, 1899. J 

I. 

ACQUISITION OF FOREIGN TERRITORY 

]Mk. Presidext, this resolution goes to the very root 
of the power of the United States Government to estab- 
lish permanently under Congressional control colonies 
distant from the United States. This is a government 
" of the people, by the people, and for the people." 
Our Constitution for the first time in all history an- 
nounced the profound truth that governments are but 
the organs and agents of the sovereign will of a free 
people, in order that the social fabric of their own mak- 
ing might be wisely, harmoniously, and peacefully con- 
ducted and administered. It crystallized in apt phrase- 
ology the aspirations of hmnankind for free govern- 
ment from the time when the tyrant's 3-oke first began 
to gall. It formulated into law their longings and 
hopes that, one day or other, the spirit of liberty would 
warm the hearts and enlighten the minds and bless 
the labors of all the sons and daughters of earth, of 
every degree, grade, and calling. 

Sir, the sword and counsels of Washington made 
him the saviour of his country. High on a throne of 
freedom, built up from the love and admiration of his 
countrymen, ho exalted sits, elevated to that high 
eminence by the unanimous voice of his countrjTiien. 

54 



DONELSON CAFFERY 55 

His supreme patriotism, undaunted courage, and wise 
counsel marked him as one fit to establish the greatest 
and freest republic of all time. Contemporary with 
him was the apostle of the faith of freedom. The im- 
mortal Declaration by Jefferson says that " Govern- 
ments derive their just powers from the consent of the 
governed." This one sentence makes the name of 
Jefferson revered throughout the earth, wherever the 
eagles of freedom plume their flight. It is the key- 
stone of the arch of republican institutions. It is the 
basic principle of our political life, and faith, and 
hope. It follows the American citizen wherever he 
goes. It is enshrined in his heart; it is a part of his 
being. It marks him as a man distinct from the vassal 
of king, kaiser, prince, or potentate. To be a Roman 
citizen was a proud distinction of a vassal to the Roman 
State. To be an American citizen is the proud distinc- 
tion of being the vassal and the lord of seventy-four 
millions of freemen, each of whom is, in turn, his vassal 
and his lord. 

It announces that freemen govern freemen. It tears 
down the superstition that " doth hedge a king " and 
makes the people the lord paramount. It lies at the 
bottom of our beloved Constitution. It is as firmly 
embedded in the American heart and character as the 
granite in his mountains. It has defied the assaults 
of civil strife and party rancor. It is proof against the 
poison of the demagogue and the despair of the patriot. 
It survives all disaster, and comes forth after every 
trial with renewed strength and power and glory. It 
was born on the eve of a struggle the most momentous 
of all time. It ushered in the great revolution which 
tore from the British crowm its brightest jewel and em- 
bedded in it the sacred principle of self-government, 
which will ever be the safety of our country in peril, 
its succor in distress, its pride in prosperity, its guide in 
war, its mentor in peace. 



56 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Sir, when this fair country was drenched in the 
blood of brethren engaged in bitter strife; when the 
thunderboh of war was launched by Titan hands; 
when marching squadrons of anned men bestrode the 
land, boding no guerdon for liberty, if not threatening 
it, another apostle, fit to wear the mantle of the great 
Jefferson, arose in our midst. Inspired, as it w^ere, 
from on high, amid the havoc and ruin, and the pomp 
and circumstance of war, Abraham Lincoln uttered a 
sentiment and announced a truth which have immor- 
talized him. lie proclaimed that this was a govern- 
ment " of the people, by the people, and for the peo- 
ple," that liberty might not perish from the earth. 

Sublime utterance! Noble expression! The tw4n 
declarations of Jefferson and Lincoln fill the whole 
conception of the Republic of the fathers. Both were 
made when war was imminent or flagrant. But these 
great men, inspired by the love of their kind, not 
blinded or swept along by the alluring enticements of 
military prestige and power, clung fast to the bulwarks 
of human liberty and announced to their countrymen 
these great political laws. No thought of aggrandize- 
ment; no heed to the whispering of ambition, or power, 
or vainglory, or lust of conquest! No, sir! But with 
steadfast faith in the capacities of human nature they 
turned their eyes, not to foreign shores inviting acces- 
sion; not to alien peoples cast up by the storm, of battle 
and conquest, but to the great, primal, everlasting prin- 
ciples of the American Constitution. 

These great men thought that while the minds of the 
people were excited with thoughts of blood and battle, 
when the glare and trappings of war and the glow of 
patriotic ardor were at their brightest and highest, 
then was the time to divert the eye from militarism, in 
all its seductive power and strength, to the great prin- 
ciples of liberty. They thought that the highest duty 
of the American citizen was to enjoy his liberty; they 



DONELSON CAFFERY 57 

thought his supreme duty was to preserve inviolate that 
liberty and to transmit it to his posterity. 

Were they " little Americans," Mr. President? 
When Washington besought his countrymen to avoid 
all foreign complications and entanglements was he a 
little American^ Who had greater opportunity to ad- 
vance the sword above the ploughshare and to wrench 
from Britain and Spain their contiguous territory ? Sir, 
he counselled that sobriety and considerateness of con- 
duct and bearing toward the world which Solomon 
taught us to practise in our prosperity. And when the 
marvellous valor of our countrymen has thrown into 
our lap possessions which have been a thorn in the side 
of our defeated foe, let us carefully and patriotically 
weigh ourselves in the scale of our Constitution, of our 
principles of government, of our honor, our race, our 
interest, and our duty. 

II. 

FAILURE OF SUB-TROPICAL REPUBLICS 

Mr. President, if we had the right to incorporate 
the Philippine Islands, inhabited by strange and singu- 
lar people, it is impolitic and unwise. Cast your eye 
over the map of the globe and find where freedom 
exists. Does it exist in the sub-tropics? Has it ever 
existed in the sub-tropics? Can it exist in the sub- 
tropics? When I look at the condition of the world, 
when I review the history of the past, I am unalterably 
convinced that no permanent sway can ever be held by 
the white man over the colored races of the tropics; 
and if sway is held, it is held under the power of un- 
limited, cruel despotism. That is the only way the 
white man can rule in the tropics. It is the only way he 
has ever ruled. Whether it is providential or whether it 
is not, it is a fact. 



58 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Sir, what element of streiigtli is it? Does Great 
Britain fear the incursions of the Russian bear else- 
where than on the Afghan frontier of India? Every 
single one of these distant possessions is an enormous 
element of weakness. After the acquisition of distant 
territories the pride of the nation is roused and the 
people of the nation will shed the last drop of their 
blood to retain them. That is the military instinct of 
the races. The great weakness of any free people is 
holding subject peoples as distant colonies. No greater 
weakness can be imagined. ISTo greater crime can be 
conceived than to recklessly incur it. We are told, and 
sometimes from the pulpit, that we have a holy mission 
to perform; that we must evangelize the heathen; that 
we must spread the blessed precepts of Christianity, the 
doctrines of Christ, over the dark places of earth, and 
we must do it by the s^s^ord. 

Mr. President, have we gone backward in civiliza- 
tion? Have we gone back to the doctrine of Islam, 
when religion had to have paths for its entrance into 
heathendom hewn out by the sword? In order to 
Christianize these savage people we must put the yoke 
of despotism upon their necks; and that is said to be the 
doctrine of Christ; that is the message of the Saviour; 
that is the message from Him who preached peace on 
earth and good-will to men. Sir, Christianity cannot 
be advanced by force, and the twin-sister of Chris- 
tianity, the free government of a great people, cannot 
be advanced by force. 

Do we know, does anybody know, that these people 
want our power over them? Are we to proceed, by an 
overpowering military strength, to force upon an un- 
willing people the beneficence of a Constitution which 
they reject? AVe have been the exemplars of liberty, 
and we have taught the world that the best govern- 
ment upon the earth was the freest government upon 
the earth. There is no doubt that the advance toward 



DONELSON CAFFERY 59 

parliamentary reform and a gi'eater exercise of the 
right of suffrage in European countries is due to the ex- 
ample set by the United States. Manhood suffrage in 
England has proceeded at a rapid pace. Even the des- 
potisms, as we call the governments of continental 
Europe, have advanced in parliamentary reform, and 
the people have their rights in the Reichstag, and in 
the Cortes, and throughout Europe in every direction. 
This is largely the fruit of our example. 

There is a difference between extending national- 
ity and extending empire. You can extend your 
power, but if you want to extend your nationality, ex- 
tend your institutions, extend your liberty, you must 
do it with people of your own kind. They are the 
ones to be governed by your law. Every other exten- 
sion is a weakness. Every extension of the sort that is 
contemplated in this case is a crime. You cannot ob- 
literate the nationality of 10,000,000 Malays. 

Great Britain has held India for two hundred and 
fifty years, and yet there are there but six hundred 
thousand Englishmen all told. Wherever there has 
been a strong nationality in the tropics adapted to the 
soil and to the climate, no other nationality has ever 
been able to exterminate or govern them except by 
]ihysical force. Our nationality cannot extend to this 
Pacific group of islands. Our power can go there; 
our flag can float there; but the genius of American 
liberty will remain upon our shores. It cannot be im- 
planted there. The material is not there for it to flour- 
ish and grow upon. 

Is that the sort of " expansion " we want? Is that 
the sort of empire we are derided as old fogies and little 
Americans for not desiring to establish? Mr. Presi- 
dent, we are told that duty and destiny and some unde- 
finable power are pushing us on to a splendid and mag- 
nificent future that the fathers never dreamt of. This 
e\'il thing we are called on to do cannot be painted in 



CO PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

such bright, dazzling colors as to deceive the American 
cvc. It is nothing but a wanton stretch of power. It is 
lust for power and greed for land veneered with the 
tawdriness of false humanity. You cannot hide its 
hideousness with the clothing of high-sounding phrases. 
You cannot prostitute the flag made to float over free- 
dom by driving under its folds millions of slaves. 

I want no despotism, sir. I do not want our country 
to be poisoned at the core. I do not want our people to 
be accustomed to the exercise of unlimited authority by 
Congress. That is a poison which has sapped the life 
of all republics, and it will sap the life of our Republic. 
If you destroy the germ of our institution you destroy 
the government built on the germ. 



W. BOURKE COCKRAN 

[Extracts from a speech delivered before the Students' Lecture 
Association of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Feb- 
ruary 4, 1899. J 

I. 

EVILS OF A STANDING ARMY 

Standing armies always have been and always must 
be fatal to free institutions. To realize the utter in- 
compatibility of militarism and republicanism we 
have but to look at France. When we recall the first 
French Republic scattering the combined forces of 
Europe through the valor of its volunteer armies, how 
pitiful is the spectacle of the third Republic cowering 
in abject fear of its own standing army, incapable of 
wielding any influence abroad, impotent even to do 
justice at home. The experience of this country 
proves that a citizen soldiery is invincible against for- 
eign aggression or domestic insurrection, while all 
history shows that a mercenary soldiery has never been 
so formidable to any country as the one which sup- 
ports it. A standing army in the long run has always 
become helpless against foreign foes, but it has always 
remained of deadly efiiciency against domestic liber- 
ties. The soldier in war may be a hero, the soldier 
in peace is either useless or dangerous. The camp 
may be a school of virtue and patriotism, the barracks 
are always asylums of laziness and often hotbeds of 
vice. The moral law is binding on nations as well as 

61 



62 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

on individuals. A violation of it by either is always 
followed by retribution, slow perhaps, but inexorably 
stern. He who draws the sword will perish by the 
sword, and the republic that establishes a standing 
army to smite freedom in other lands will live to find 
her own liberties trampled in the dust under the feet 
of a mercenary soldiery. 

Aside from its inherent hostility to free institutions, 
a standing army is a crushing burden on the neck of 
the laborer, because it operates to reduce his earning 
capacity while at the same time he is forced to bear 
the whole expense of its maintenance. The first es- 
sential of high wages is abundance of commodities, 
and a standing army is an insuperable obstacle to ex- 
tensive production. The volume of production de- 
pends on the number of hands employed in labor and 
the amount of capital available to promote their effi- 
ciency. Capital has been well defined as stored-up 
labor. A man without capital can labor, but not ef- 
fectively. With his bare hand he might turn over a 
few feet of earth in the course of a day, but with a 
plough he can cultivate several acres in the same 
period. The plough itself is the fruit of labor for- 
merly expended, and, therefore, the laborer using it 
or any other implement is but utilizing the labor of 
other days to reinforce the labor of to-day. 

Since the efficiency of the laborer depends, not 
solely on the labor of his own hands, but largely on the 
amount of stored-up labor which he can employ to re- 
inforce his natural capacity, any policy which tends 
to dissipate capital in unproductive enterprises is a 
direct assault on his prosperity. Every dollar of sur- 
plus product or capital invested in implements, in 
machinery, in buildings, is a fruitful dollar. Com- 
modities used in production multiply themselves even 
while they perish. Every dollar expended for muni- 
tions of war is a sterile dollar. It is not used for the 



W. BOURKE COCK RAN 63 

purpose of production, but for the purpose of destruc- 
tion. It is wasted as completely as if it were thrown 
into the sea. 

The soldier, whether in barracks or in camp, is with- 
drawn from the field of industry. His own hands add 
nothing to the product of the country. His pay and 
his sustenance must, therefore, be drawn from the 
product of others. The laborer is the sole producer. 
On him must fall the whole cost of a military estab- 
lishment. In other words, a standing army imposes 
upon each laborer the burden of supporting two men 
— himself and a soldier — while at the same time it 
diminishes his earning capacity by dissipating the cap- 
ital on which his productive efficiency depends. 

But far worse than the spoliation of the laborer is 
the degradation which he suffers from a standing 
army. Militarism has always despised industry. 
Nothing can be more natural than the contempt in 
which the industrious man who pays for a showy uni- 
form is held by the idle wearer of it. The whole 
literature of the militant ages reflects this contempt. 
Until very recent years the workman was never men- 
tioned in print except as a villain, a serf, a beggar or 
some other term so opprobrious that the expressed 
" base mechanic " seems by contrast like a respectful 
description. 

The establishment of this Kepublic, based on the 
equality of all men before the law, has worked many 
changes in social conditions, but none so remarkable 
as the change in the condition of the laborer. For one 
hundred and twenty years we have held him to be the 
best citizen who by the labor of his good right arm 
caused two blades of grass to gro-w where one grew 
before — him to be the best patriot who bears the most 
effective part in the great scheme of industrial co- 
operation, which is called civilization. We have not 
trusted our security to mercenary soldiers, and we have 



C4 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

grown to be the most powerful nation on earth through 
the valor of citizen soldiers. AVe have displayed 
invincible prowess in war, and measureless genius in 
peace. The success of our Republic has changed the 
whole trend of human thought. We have proved it 
possible to maintain the restraints of wholesome au- 
thority without any fiction of hereditary right, or any 
blasphemous assertion of divine intervention. Our 
Government has rested secure upon its foundations in 
the consent of the governed, without any symbol of 
force to maintain its authority. Law and order have 
reigned throughout our whole territory without uni- 
formed soldiers in our streets, with no arsenal or for- 
tress casting a sinister shadow over our highways. 
We have so thoroughly protected property by laws en- 
acted in obedience to public opinion that industry has 
been stimulated to an unprecedented degree, diffusing 
among our citizens a prosperity without parallel in the 
history of the world. All these marvellous achieve- 
ments are ours, because we have never invoked force 
except to vindicate justice, because we have steadily 
refused to corrupt our youth by imposing upon them 
in times of peace the demoralizing idleness of military 
life, because we have always refused to admit that any 
citizen can be more worthy of respect or protection 
than the laborer who, through all our history, has 
proved himself the true fountain of prosperity, the 
engine of progress, the mainstay of order and the bul- 
wark of liberty. 

n. 

TBADE AND THE FLAG 

The assertion that trade follows the flag is one of 
those vaporous platitudes which have worked much 
mischief to mankind. It is the pretext by which the 



W. BOURKE COCKRAlSr 65 

man of violence has more than once enlisted in schemes 
of conquest the co-operation of the peaceful producer. 
The statement is not true. Trade does not follow the 
flag. Oftentimes it goes in exactly the opposite direc- 
tion. Since England's sovereignty was overthrown in 
this country her trade with us has gTOwn immeasur- 
ably. It is to-day greater than her trade with all her 
colonies combined. Here, as her flag was driven out, 
her trade rushed in. 

Because England is rich and has vast foreign pos- 
sessions, some think she is rich because she has them. 
This is a mistake. She is rich, not through them, but 
in spite of them. They do not yield a dollar of rev- 
enue, yet they are a source of immense expense to Eng- 
lishmen. England expends vast sums for the defence 
of her colonies. She gets nothing in return ; not even 
a market for her goods. England's colonies impose 
tariffs on English manufactures just as heavy as those 
which they impose on ours. John Brown in Mel- 
bourne, John Brown in Halifax, John Brown in Cape 
Town, enjoy all the benefit of the English navy, if 
there be any benefit in it, without contributing a shill- 
ing to the support of it, while John Brown in London 
is taxed unmercifully to pay the whole cost of its main- 
tenance. 

Markets depend not on armaments, but on prices. 
Men buy where they can buy cheapest. To hold the 
markets of Australia, Canada, India, or Egypt, Eng- 
land must supply them with the best goods at the 
lowest prices. Her capacity to do this is not strength- 
ened by her political connection with them, but it is 
impaired by the enormous expenditures which she is 
compelled to make for their defence. A system which 
entails the establishment of a standing army cannot 
cheapen goods, but must advance prices, because it 
restricts the volume of production by withdrawing the 
best laborers from the field of industry, and, at the 



66 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

same time, diminislies the efficiency of the remainder 
by diverting capital from industrial enterprises, where 
it is fruitful, to military enterprises, where it is fruit- 
less. 

Every fact in history shows that the seizure of for- 
eign territory does not promote trade, but restricts it. 
The trade of England during the last ten years has not 
increased proportionately with the trade of other coun- 
tries, yet it has been for her a period of extraordinary 
territorial aggTandizement. France, too, has been ac- 
quiring extensive foreign possessions, not to the ad- 
vantage of her trade, but to its detriment. Germany, 
on the other hand, has engaged in few foreign ad- 
ventures, yet the growth of her trade and population 
has been phenomenal, and this, too, in the face of the 
vast standing army which the conquest of Alsace and 
Lorraine has compelled her to maintain. 

If foreign possessions were a source of wealth, Spain 
would be the richest nation in the world to-day. She 
was the first power to establish colonies, and her Colo- 
nial Empire has impoverished her people, demoralized 
her government, corrupted her service, and brought 
her to the abasement in which she lies to-day. Foreign 
possessions may furnish places and fortunes to favor- 
ites of the Government, but they have never added a 
dollar to the wages of labor in England, Spain or any 
other country, and, in the nature of things, they must 
operate to reduce them. 

When we challenge the imperialist to name one 
instance in which trade has been promoted by con- 
quest, ho shifts his gi'ound with an ease that shows 
his aj'guments are as loose as his morals. Confronted 
with the stern facts of history, he abandons the sordid 
contention that his policy will promote trade, or, in 
plainer language, that there is money in it, and as- 
sumes a lofty attitude of devotion to humanity and 
civilization. Ho tells us that while foreign posses- 



W. BOURKE COCKRAlSr 67 

sions may be unprofitable, it is nevertheless a duty 
imposed on us by civilization to take possession of ter- 
ritory inhabited by weaker races for the purpose of 
civilizing them by subjecting them, not to the influ- 
ence of our political institutions — from these they 
would be excluded — but to the authority of our oihce 
holders. 

Civilization by slaughter is not an original device. 
It has been often tried; it has never borne salutary 
fruit. When we ask for a single instance in which a 
nation has been civilized by force, we are invited to 
look at India. Well, let us look at India. I do not 
ask you to recall the hideous barbarities practised by 
English officials on the Indian people during the last 
century, from the victories of Clive to the recall of 
Warren Hastings, but let us see how far, even in this 
century, English rule has been a source of improve- 
ment in India. When we speak of improvement in 
the condition of a country we must mean the improve- 
ment, moral and material, of its people. No man can 
be considered " improved " if he cannot take care of 
himself. What is true of an individual is true of a 
nation, for a nation is but the sum of the individuals 
who constitute it. 

If the Indian has been improved to any substantial 
extent, he must be able now to govern himself. But 
this is precisely what England denies he is able to do. 
It is true that the people of India have been compelled 
by the English authorities to abandon certain practices 
which are considered barbarous by those of us whose 
conduct is governed by the Christian standard of 
morals; but outward obedience to a system of laws 
'through coercion is not improvement. Improvement 
begins where coercion ceases. A scheme of improve- 
ment which, after two centuries of experiment, its 
author admits to be unsuccessful, is not one which 
commends itself to imitation. 



68 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

The promotion of civilization is the pretence by 
which nations have always sought to excuse or justify 
acts of aggression. The foulest deeds recorded in his- 
tory were perpetrated with professions of devotion t© 
morality and justice. Morality has never been ad- 
vanced by crime. Justice has never been vindicated 
by wrong. Civilization has never been promoted by 
barbaric conquest or bloodshed. People cannot be 
improved by denying them the opportunity to acquire 
from experience the true lesson of self-improvement. 
There is but one way to qualify a nation for self-gov- 
ernment, and that is to impose upon its people the duty 
of government — forcing them to suffer without relief 
the consequences of riot or extravagance, allowing 
them to enjoy unmolested the fruits of industry and 
order. 



III. 

ALLIANCE WITH ENGLAND 

"When the imperialist is shown that his schemes for 
the promotion of trade and civilization are both futile 
and unsound, he is neither discomfited nor abashed. 
With undisturbed assurance and unabated vehemence 
he proceeds to tell us that if we withdraw from the 
Philippines we will imperil the prospects of an alliance 
between England and this country. I am not alarmed 
by this threat. It is quite true that the English press 
and a certain portion of the English people are un- 
remitting in their efforts to persuade this country to 
adopt what is called a vigorous foreign policy. Any 
American who advocates imperialistic adventures is 
sure to be quoted at length in the London newspapers, 
and certain of a cordial welcome in the London draw- 
i Tig-rooms. 



W. BOURKE COCKRAN 69 

England's anxiety that we should hold the Philip- 
pines is not caused by love of us, but by her own self- 
interest. It springs from two sources, one senti- 
mental, one practical. Like every other country in 
Europe whose history has been stained by deeds of 
violence perpetrated against weaker nations, she is 
jealous of the lofty moral position which we have 
achieved by unswerving devotion to justice in our deal- 
ings Avith all the world. But there is a more practical 
reason which urges her statesmen and her newspapers 
to encourage us in schemes of conquest. At present 
she fears us. As our territory is now constituted, no 
part of it is vulnerable to attack by any foe, while 
along our northern border stretches one of the most 
important English colonial possessions unfortified — 
practically at our mercy in the event of war. If, how- 
ever, we undertook to establish our authority over 
transmarine territory, we could not maintain it in the 
face of her hostility while she controls the seas, as she 
will control them for years to come. Our positions 
would then be reversed. Instead of having less, we 
would have more, to fear from hostilities than Eng- 
land, because with an inferior navy we would be 
forced to provide, not merely for the defence of our 
own shores, but also for the vindication of that mys- 
terious quantity known among militant nations as 
" honor," which, in plain English, means the ability 
to hold by force and cruelty what has been seized by 
violence and outrage. 

England has not changed. She is what she has al- 
ways been. The attitude she held to us in the last 
century she holds now to nations weaker than herself, 
as the files of her newspapers and the utterances of her 
public men will show. To-day England is polite, cor- 
dial, even affectionate to us, but let the conditions 
change, let us become dependent upon her friendship 
for the security of our possessions, or the maintenance 



70 PATRIOTIC p:loquence 

of our honor, and we may judge the course she would 
pursue by every page in her history. 

When the imperialist speaks of an alliance with 
England he does not mean with the masses who have 
made England great, but with the classes who have 
always dominated her government. The alliance to 
which we are invited is not an alliance for justice and 
civilization, inspired by the conscience and morality of 
the two countries, but an alliance between the draw- 
ing-rooms of New York and London, encouraged by 
self-seeking politicians for schemes of conquest and 
plunder. It is not an alliance with the England of 
Burke, of Gladstone, but with the England which 
drove this country to revolution, which openly sym- 
pathized with the attempt to disrupt the Union, and 
which seeks now to corrupt in its day of power the 
Kepublic which she was not able to destroy in the day 
of its weakness. I favor an alliance between the in- 
dustrious and productive masses of England and 
America to improve their conditions by encouraging 
their productive capacities. I am opposed to an alli- 
ance between the governing classes on both sides of 
the Atlantic to provide additional places and oppor- 
tunities for their members by involving this country 
in military adventures. 

Alliances for conquest and plunder, like all other 
partnerships of crime, invariably lead to quarrels be- 
tween the allies. 

The co-operation of nations in the spread of com- 
merce, the maintenance of justice, the vindication of 
free institutions, bind them in ties of ever-deepening 
sympathy and friendliness. Every law enacted for 
the advancement of liberty, every judicial decision 
confirming the foundations of freedom, every process 
invented to increase the productive power of human 
hands, every extension of popular power on either side 
of the Atlantic, has been a contribution to the indus- 



W. BOURKE COCKEAN 71 

trial and moral welfare of the world in which both 
countries have co-operated successfully without any 
formal treaty between them, No treaty, whatever its 
provisions, would suffice to embark the God-fearing 
people of this land in a policy of bloodshed or aggres- 
sion. 



IV. 

DISPOSITION OF THE PHILIPPINES 

When driven to his last ditch, the imperialist says 
that we who oppose his policy can offer no sensible sug- 
gestion for the disposition of the Philippines. If the 
statement were true, it does not prove the correctness 
of his position. I do not concede that we are bound 
by any moral law to corrupt our own system, even to 
benefit the people of distant lands. But I do not be- 
lieve that in order to settle this question we must 
choose between endangering the vital principles of our 
own government, and abandoning these islands to in- 
ternal anarchy or foreign spoliation. 

Nobody contends that w^e should hold the Philip- 
pines indefinitely. The most ardent imperialist does 
not claim more than that we should hold them until 
the people of the islands shall have shown their abiHty 
to govern themselves. The objection to this is its 
vagueness. If a test of their capacity for self-govern- 
ment could be prescribed, the limits of our occupancy 
would be fixed, and the objection to it diminished, if 
not removed. There is no safer test of civilization 
than the power to produce wealth, or, what is the same 
thing, to borrow money, for money cannot be bor- 
rowed unless the lender be satisfied that the borrower 
is able to repay him from the fruit of his industry. 
No barbarian is capable of labor sufficiently effective 



72 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

to create capital, and, therefore, no barbarian can enjoy 
credit. A people who have produced a surplus over 
the amount of commodities necessary for their own 
support, or who can produce a belief in the minds of 
men qualified to judge that they are able to do it, must 
be civilized. 

We have agreed to pay Spain twenty million dollars 
for these islands. Instead of treating this as a pur- 
chase fund, let us treat it as an emancipation fund. 
Let us say frankly and plainly to these Filipinos, ^' The 
money we have advanced for your emancipation we 
would freely bestow on you as a gift, if we believed it 
would encourage you to industry and lead you to pros- 
perity. But we believe you will be better fitted to 
discharge the responsibilities of independence if you 
bear all its burdens, including the cost of achieving it. 
The day you can repay from your surplus products or 
from the use of your credit the twenty millions which 
your liberation has cost and give satisfactory guaran- 
tees that under a government of your own no discrim- 
ination will be made between the commerce of differ- 
ent nations, but that industry will be encouraged by 
the thorough protection of property, that day we will 
evacuate your territory and surrender the control of 
your destinies into your own hands." ^Yith a sincere 
desire to do justice, the way to justice is soon discov- 
ered. 

The evacuation of the Philippine Islands by the 
United States would obviate the necessity for main- 
taining a standing army. It would cause an advance 
in the rate of wages through the increase of trade aris- 
ing from the establishment of durable peace. It 
would add a new page to the history of this country 
more glorious than an}- of those preceding it. The 
human race would be stimulated to new progTCss by 
the spectacle of the gi'eatest nation in the world using 
its invincible strength, not to despoil the weak, but to 



W. BOUEKE COCK KAN 73 

uplift them ; not to extend its own territorial dominion, 
but to extend the dominion of justice throughout the 
world. 

I oppose this novel, un-American policy of imperial- 
ism because the grounds on which its advocates sup- 
port it are puerile, inconsistent, and dishonest; because 
it involves the existence of a standing army to menace 
liberty and to oppress labor by diminishing w^ages; be- 
cause it is cowardly to invade the rights of the weak 
while respecting those of the strong; because it would 
divorce the American flag and the American Constitu- 
tion by sending the one where the other cannot go; 
because it is a policy of inconceivable folly from a 
material point of view, and a policy of unspeakable 
infamy from a moral point of view. 

I favor the traditional American policy of expan- 
sion because I want this republic to continue in the 
path which leads to higher achievements of peace and 
progress; because I want this country to remain the 
land where the patriotic workingman who produces is 
more honored than the paid fighting man who de- 
stroys, where the laborer's overalls enjoy equal dignity 
with the soldier's uniform, where a dinner-pail is more 
highly esteemed than a knapsack, where a spade is 
deemed more valuable than a musket, a hospital than 
a battery, a school than a fortress; where the enduring 
glory of justice is pursued and the vainglory of con- 
quest despised; where the flag which typifies liberty 
and the Constitution which secures it, enshrined in 
the hearts, sustained by the arms, glorified by the 
memories of a free people, shall remain invincible, in- 
destructible, inseparable, forever and forever. 



74 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 



[Extracts from a speech delivered at Faneuil Hall, Boston, 
February 23, 1900.] 



THE PORTO RICAN TARIFF 

It may be tliat the attempt to impose discriminating 
duties against Porto Rican products will be aban- 
doned. Public indignation may revive the President's 
original notions of " plain duty." It may replace the 
War Department in full harmony with the " highest 
dictates of honor and prudence," restore the chairman 
of the Ways and Means Committee to his better bill 
and his better self. But whatever the fate of this 
measure, nothing can now obscure the principle on 
which it is drawn. Whatever course may be adopted 
toward Porto Rico, there is no doubt that if the Philip- 
pine islands be held as United States territory an at- 
tempt will be made to enforce a protective policy 
against them, notwithstanding the plain provisions of 
the Constitution. 

Protection in the sense proposed by this bill is vastly 
different from the protective system with which we 
have been familiar in this country. Protection be- 
tween independent countries has inherent limitations 
whifli prevent it from degenerating into absolute bar- 
barism. Protection between a governing country and 
its dependencies has no limitations except the forbear- 
ance of those who expect to profit by the discrimina- 
tion. It is hardly conceivable that industries which 
demanded any advantage would be satisfied with any- 
thing less than the utmost advantage which a discrim- 
inative and partial government could confer. Be- 
tween independent countries the only form which pro- 
tection can take is the imposition of discriminating 



W. BOURKE COCKRAN 75 

duties at the custom-house. Protection by taxation, 
however, gives advantage only in our own markets. 
In foreign markets it leaves us exposed to competition 
with all other countries. 

If the protectionist doesn't attempt to gain artificial 
advantages over competitors in foreign markets, it is 
not because he wouldn't Hke to do so, but because he 
knows the attempt would be fruitless. On the prin- 
ciple of this bill, however, our Territories are not with- 
in the protection of the Constitution, and the power of 
Congress over their trade is unlimited. It can pre- 
vent their inhabitants from competing with us in for- 
eign as well as domestic markets, by simply prohibiting 
them from engaging in any form of competing indus- 
try. This is the invariable and inevitable result of 
establishing a protective system against subject or de- 
pendent territories. 

If our products are entitled to an advantage over 
those of the Philippines or Porto Rico in our own mar- 
kets they are entitled to the same advantage in other 
markets if we have the power to create such advan- 
tages. If the producers of the United States are en- 
titled to any protection they are entitled to the most 
complete protection in the power of the government 
to bestow, and since protection by taxation is but par- 
tial and local, while protection by prohibition can be 
made absolute and universal, it is the duty of Congress 
to prohibit absolutely in our dependencies the produc- 
tion of any commodities that might compete with our 
own products in foreign or domestic markets. There 
is no principle of free government which this legisla- 
tion does not violate. For a parallel to it we would 
search Christendom in vain to-day. To find a prece- 
dent for it we must turn our faces from the light of 
the twentieth to the gloom of the eighteenth century. 

It is the system which England tried to establish in 
this country, and which she succeeded in. establishing 



76 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

in Ireland, when, to gi'atify English producers, she 
forbade the Irish people to engage in the manufacture 
of cloth, prohibited the exportation of cattle and horses 
from Ireland to England, and destroyed the rapidly 
growing Irish shipping trade by exempting Ireland 
from the oi^eration of the navigation laws. It is the 
same system which raised these colonies in successful 
revolt against her, and arrayed the Irish people in bit- 
ter hostility to her. It is the system w^hich she was 
compelled to abandon at the beginning of this century 
from a sense of self-preservation. It is the system 
which has blighted the progress of civilization wher- 
ever it has been enforced, and ruined irretrievably the 
country applying it. It is the system on which Spain 
always administered her colonies, and which corrupted 
her government, degraded her people, undermined her 
power, and shattered her empire. 

It is a tragedy of history that such a system should 
be proposed to the American Congress. The contri- 
bution of the United States to the civilization of the 
world is the principle that the only proper basis and 
justification of government is the consent of the gov- 
erned, or, in other words, the welfare of the governed; 
for it is not conceivable that a man would consent to 
anything which operated to his own injury. In this 
country government has always been regarded as a 
duty, in other countries as a privilege; here as a trust 
to be discharged, elsewhere as an opportunity to be 
exploited. The American conception of government 
has been embodied in a Constitution which was in- 
tended to create no power that could be used for the 
oppression of the individual, and to omit none neces- 
sary for his protection. 

Government on the principle revealed by this meas- 
ure is government not for the protection of the gov- 
erned, but for the profit of the governing power. This 
is necessarily government for plunder. As it would 



W. BOURKE COCKRAN 77 

be impossible to put a government of oppression into 
operation under institutions of justice, the very first 
step of the imperiaHsts is an attempt to overthrow the 
Constitution which it is the duty of every American 
to defend ; and now these assailants of the Constitution 
stigmatize its defenders as traitors to it. This is en- 
tirely natural. 

The administration of government cannot be profit- 
able unless it be dishonest. If more revenue be exact- 
ed from a people than is returned to them in some form 
of service, the excess is tribute. If history teaches any 
one lesson, it is that tribute has always proved vastly 
more pernicious to the country exacting it than to the 
country paying it. The moral law which binds na- 
tions does not difi^er from the moral law which binds 
men. Individual experience shows that in commerce 
nothing is so stupid as dishonesty. History show^s that 
in nations nothing is so stupid as pillage. 



n. 

IMPERIALISM 

Imperialism and republicanism are essentially hos- 
tile. The same government cannot be autocratic and 
representative. Tw^o such hostile principles cannot 
dwell in the same system. One must inevitably seek 
to destroy the other. The imperialist professes to be- 
lieve that this government can be administered by an 
executive whose right hand is imperial and whose left 
hand is constitutional — who is a military autocrat in 
one place and a republican magistrate in another — with- 
out any danger to our political system. It is supposed, 
of course, that the imperial powers will be exercised 
abroad and the constitutional powers at home, but the 
only separation between these powers is a constitu- 



78 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

tional prohibition. The mere proposal to establish 
such a system shows the value of a paper prohibition. 

There is no doubt that the President has the power 
to quarter the army of the United States anywhere 
within the limits of the United States. The President 
and his army together constitute the autocracy. All 
the elements of autocracy could, therefore, be estab- 
lished in the United States without offending against 
any statute. True, we might still cherish the hope 
that they would not be put into operation, sa^; to dis- 
perse a recalcitrant Congress, bent upon the traitorous 
purpose of impeaching a president for excessive zeal 
in enforcing or, perhaps, extending the new form of 
government. But hopes are a treacherous founda- 
tion for political necessity. Whatever use might be 
made of these new executive powers, certain it is that 
we would have within the territorial limits of the re- 
public the entire imperial outfit, and that, I think, is 
more than any republic has ever been able to digest. 

The difference between barbarism and civilization is 
that barbarism occupies men's hands at each other's 
throats in destruction; civilization employs men's 
bands on the bosom of the earth in co-operative produc- 
tion. To the extent that a nation draws men from the 
fields of co-operative production, and arms them to go 
at each other's throats on fields of battle, to that ex- 
tent it is moving away from civilization and back to 
primitive barbarism. 

The most valuable contribution which this country 
has made to the education of the world has been the 
raising of the American laborer to the dignity of full 
civic power. Through the militant ages the laborer 
was always a subject of contempt. The Norman 
called him a villain; the Russian called him a serf; 
everywhere he was described as a base mechanic or a 
tattered beggar, or by some equally euphonious ex- 
pression. Here we have made him a monarch. And 



W. BOURKE COCKRAN 79 

we well cast our eyes over this continent and challenge 
the judgment of the world on the statesmanship that 
raised him from abasement to dignity. 

The emblem of this country, of its progress, its 
hopes, its achievements, and its prospects, ought not 
to be the knapsack, but the dinner-pail. We have 
grown beyond all the nations that ever existed, because 
we have maintained a political system under which all 
the fruits yielded by a generous earth have been dis- 
tributed among those who produced them. I favor 
any system which operates to increase the volume of 
this product and its distribution in the form of higher 
wages. I am opposed to any policy which must oper- 
ate to reduce wages by diminishing the volume of pro- 
duction. 

Imperialism necessarily operates to reduce wages 
because it involves the establishment of standing 
armies. If we have a standing army it must be sup- 
ported. It cannot support itself. The cost of main- 
taining a soldiery and furnishing munitions of war 
must be wrung from the proceeds of industry. There 
is no other source from which they can be maintained. 
The establishment of a standing army, therefore, im- 
poses upon every laborer the burden of supporting two 
men — himself and a soldier. Imperialism must al- 
ways rest on a standing army. Its vital pnnciple and 
essential element is the thirst of a mercenary soldiery 
for opportunities of plunder and promotion. 

Republican government must always rest on the 
virtue, patriotism, self-sacrifice, and self-control of the 
citizen soldier. We anti-imperialists have no fear for 
the security of our country while it is guarded by the 
valor of the American democracy. We don't sit up 
nights for fear that China, Japan, Germany, or any 
other power might undertake to injure us or to seize 
part of our territory. We would be perfectly satisfied 
to trust the security of American soil to American 



80 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

laborers organized as citizen soldiers, even if they were 
armed with no better weapons than paving-stones. 

Whoever is doubtful about the future let him recall 
the close of the Civil War, Who could have foretold 
at that time the pacification which has ensued — the 
reunion so complete that to-day if our flag was assailed 
no hearts would beat more quickly in loyal affection, 
no swords would leap faster from their scabbards to 
defend it, than the hearts and swords of those heroes 
who, vanquished by the Union armies, would have 
been invincible against any meaner foe ? 

At the close of the war the policy which was ulti- 
mately adopted had never been suggested or even fore- 
seen by anybody. No man moved by the passions of 
that period could have conceived the policy of mag- 
nanimity which has since become the glorious history 
of the IJnited States. The most moderate northern 
newspapers assumed as matter of course that restrictive 
precautions would be taken against any revival of se- 
cession or attempts to disrupt the Union, while the 
party organs were unanimous and vociferous in urging 
the adoption of punitive measures disguised under 
demand for compensation or reparation. The songs 
of the street celebrated a purpose to hang Jeff Davis 
on a sour apple-tree at the earliest moment. Andrew 
Johnson declared that treason must be made odious, 
which meant that it would be advisable to hang a few 
Confederates as soon as the rebellion was so far sup- 
pressed that reprisals would be impracticable. 

But when Grant prescribed for Lee the most liberal 
terms ever offered in the history of internecine con- 
flicts, he fixed quite unconsciously the whole policy of 
reconstruction. Those terms were prescribed not 
through obedience to any party caucus, nor regard for 
party success. They embodied the highest wisdom, 
because they were conceived in the most exalted 
justice. For that reason they were accepted by the 



W. BOTJRKE COCKRAN 81 

American people as an expression of their conscience. 
They imposed them upon politicians and upon news- 
papers, upon legislatures and executive officers, as the 
final policy of pacification. It proved to be a policy 
of infinite healing in this country, and of infinite value 
to the world. It was the first attempt in the experi- 
ence of mankind to compose civil strife by pardon in- 
stead of by punishment. It forms the proudest page 
in the history of the United States, for pacification by 
pardon was instantaneous and complete, while pacifi- 
cation by punishment had always bred new grievances 
and disturbances prolonged through centuries of dis- 
content. We can little appreciate the statesmanship 
which converted the assault on the Union into a bond 
which makes it indissoluble forever — indeed, we must 
have read to little purpose the whole history of the 
United States — if we can doubt that this question will 
be settled by the American people wisely, that is to 
say, justly, for justice is the highest form of wisdom. 

I know of no organized government in the world 
to-day except the government of the United States 
that rises to the full conception of Christian ci-viliza- 
tion. This government was not created one hundred 
and twenty-five years ago. It has not been created 
even since the discovery of Columbus. The plan of 
this government was laid on the shores of Lake Gali- 
lee, when the Saviour of Mankind taught that in the 
sight of God all men are equal. From that day to this 
history is but the record of the movement of humanity 
toward the application of this principle to civil gov- 
ernment. The general acceptance of a religious be- 
lief in the spiritual equality of man led irresistibly to 
the establishment of political institutions based on the 
political equality of man. This government is the 
inevitable result and culmination of the Christian rev- 
elation. 

As the cross is the emblem of the truth on which 



82 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Christianity is founded, is the flag of our country the 
emblem of the fruit which Christianity has borne? 
Shall that flag be unfurled over the polygamy, and 
slavery, the nameless crimes and unspeakable infamies 
of the East? Shall that flag, imstained and unstain- 
able, become the emblem of a slave-holding, oriental 
Sultan? Shall it be the emblem of autocracy in any 
form? Better ten thousand times that this govern- 
ment had never been established — better this continent 
had never been discovered; better that the savage still 
held its fertile fields as untilled hunting-grounds than 
that the experiment of a government founded on 
justice and freedom once tried should prove a failure. 

The issue before the American people is the vindi- 
cation of the Declaration of Independence. Can there 
be a doubt as to how it will be decided? When the 
Declaration of Independence is mocked and derided, 
when a political party proposes to divorce the 
American flag from the American Constitution and 
to clothe a Republican magistrate with autocratic 
powers, an issue is presented which involves the sub- 
version or the maintenance of free government. 

This is an issue which overshadows all other issues, 
not merely in this campaign, but all the issues of all 
the campaigns in all the history of this country. It is 
an issue old as the contest for human rights. It is a 
renewal of the irrepressible conflict between justice, 
which is freedom, and injustice, which is tyranny; be- 
tween the Christian civilization, based on respect for 
the rights of the weak as well as of the strong, and the 
baser civilizations, which, ignoring the moral law, ac- 
knowledge no restraint but the coward fear of force; 
between the constitutional republic established by the 
election of Jeiferson in 1800 and the corrupt and cor- 
rupting empire which will be erected upon its ruins 
by the election of McKinley in 1900. 

In these hallowed precincts it is impossible to doubt 



W. BOUEKE COCKRAN 83 

that this attempt to subvert the institutions of free- 
dom will fail, as all others have failed. This govern- 
ment shall continue to stand for the defence of human 
rights in this country and respect for human rights 
elsewhere. 'No administration and no party shall es- 
tablish a new infamy under the shadow of Old Glory. 
The flag which typifies freedom and the Constitution 
which protects it shall never be divorced. Insepa- 
rable, indestructible, and invincible, they shall ever 
remain the priceless heritage of the American people, 
the hope and the inspiration of all mankind. 



ROBERT G. COUSmS 
TRIBUTE TO THE MAINE VICTIMS 

[Delivered in the House of Representatives, March 22, 1898. J 

The measure now proposed is most appropriate and 
just, but hardly is it mentionable in contemplation of 
the great calamity to which it appertains. It will be 
merely an incidental, legislative foot-note to a page 
of history that will be open to the eyes of the Republic 
and of the world for all time to come. No human 
speech can add anything to the silent gratitude, the 
speechless reverence already given by a great and 
grateful nation to its dead defenders and to their living 
kin. JSTo act of Congress providing for their needs can 
make a restitution for their sacrifice. Human nature 
does, in human ways, its best, and still feels deep in 
debt. 

Expressions of condolence have come from every 
country and from every clime, and every nerve of steel 
and ocean-cable has carried on electric breath the 
sweetest, tendcrest words of sympathy for that gallant 
crew who manned the Maine. But no human recom- 
pense can reach them. Humanity and time remain 
their everlasting debtors. It was a brave, and strong, 
and splendid crew. They were a part of the blood, and 
bone, and sinew of our land. Two were from my 
native State of Iowa. Some were only recently at the 
Naval Academy, where they had so often heard the 

84 



ROBERT G, COUSINS 85 

morning and the evening salutation to the flag, that 
flag which had been interwoven with the dearest mem- 
ories of their lives and which had colored all their 
friendships with the lasting blue of true fidelity. 

But whether they came from naval school or civil 
life, from one State or from another, they called each 
other comrade — that gem of human language which 
sometimes means but little less than love and a little 
more than friendship — that gentle salutation of the 
human heart that speaks in all the languages of man, 
that winds, and turns, and runs through all the joys 
and sorrows of the human race — through deed, and 
thought, and dream, through song, and toil, and battle- 
field. 

1^0 foe had ever challenged them. The world can 
never know how brave they were. They never knew 
defeat; they never shall. While at their posts of duty, 
sleep lured them into the abyss, then death unlocked 
their slumbering eyes for but an instant, to behold its 
dreadful carnival. Most of them, just when life was 
full of hope and all its tides were at their highest, 
grandest flow — just when the early sunbeams were 
falling on the steeps of fame and flooding all life's 
landscape, far out into the dreamy, distant horizon — 
just at that age when all the nymphs were making dia- 
dems and garlands, weaving laurel-wreaths before the 
eyes of young and eager nature — just then, when death 
seemed most unnatural. 

Hovering above the dark waters of that mysterious 
harbor of Havana the black-winged vulture watches 
for the belated dead — while over it and over all there 
is the eagle's piercing eyes, sternly watching for the 
truth. Whether the appropriation carried by this reso- 
lution shall be ultimately charged to fate or to some 
foe shall soon appear. Meanwhile a patient and a 
patriotic people, enlightened by the lessons of our his- 
tory, remembering the woes of war, both to the van- 



86 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

quished and victorious, are ready for the truth and 
ready for their duty. 

♦' The tumult and the shouting dies— 
The Captains and the King depart- 
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice, 
An humble and a contrite heart, 
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, 
Lest we forget— lest we forget." 



CAUSES AND ISSUES OF THE SPANISH 
WAR 

[Delivered before the Hamilton Club, Chicago, November 5, 1898.] 

Wak and its attending calamities are never to be 
sought. The President and Congress, mindful of the 
woes of war both to the vanquished and victorious, ex- 
hausted every peaceful means before resorting to aims. 
The United States has never waged a war of conquest 
nor entertained a thought of interfering with the sov- 
ereignty of other governments while our own rights 
and interests were unmolested. Although sympathiz- 
ing with every struggle that has been made for the 
achievement of liberty and self-government, it has 
never been the policy or practice of this nation to med- 
dle with the management of other powers or to menace 
their authority as exercised among their own dependen- 
cies. The United States would not have thought of 
interfering with the Spanish government except for 
the injuries we had sustained and the serious and con- 
tinuous detriment which we suffered by reason of its 
uncivilized, inhuman, and unlawful acts. It is the 
right of every nation to defend itself and to protect its 
own. More than that, it is morally bound to do so. 

The causes of the interference of this nation with 
the barbarous practices of Spain involve the history of 



ROBERT G. COUSINS 87 

continuous crime whicli that power had been commit- 
ting in our immediate vicinity contrary to and in viola- 
tion of the law of nations and of civilization, and which 
finally brought about and culminated in the horrible 
disaster which took the lives of two hundred and sixty 
of our seamen, for which the kingdom of Spain should 
have at once realized and recognized its responsibility 
and accountability if it were not utterly incapable of 
such realization by reason of its long-continued, igno- 
minious and criminal career, presenting at last to the 
eyes of the world the spectacle of its bankrupt and 
creditless condition, not only financially, but morally. 
That history of continuous criminal oppression and the 
threatening situation then existing in the island of 
Cuba and its material and disastrous effects upon our 
people and their interests had been clearly set forth in 
the message of our President and in those of his 
predecessors. 

^o power or civil organization upon the earth which 
recognized our right and duty to defend and protect 
our citizens and their interests could fail to see the pro- 
priety and justice of our intervention. A quarter of a 
century of most patient endurance had borne witness 
to our unparalleled forbearance and the resolutions of 
the House of Representatives show beyond all question 
the high and worthy motive which actuated our 
nation's course. The tribute of blood and treasure 
which had already been forced from us from the time 
of the memorable Virginius slaughter to the horrible 
tragedy of the Maine, was regarded even by a tranquil 
people as far too great a price to pay for peace. Bar- 
barism has no right to make such great exaction of 
civilization. Progress is slow enough and difficult 
enough without having to drag along through countless 
weary years and into the twentieth centmy the chain 
and ball of Spanish hindrance. The past with all its 
horrors must loose its villainous hands from the plead- 



88 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

ing throat of the present. The cruel monsters of the 
night must not be pei*mitted to torture and destroy the 
toilers of the day. The men and women of the world 
who are willing to work that they may eat, must not be 
despoiled even by royal robbers. Peaceful commerce 
must not be injured and impeded by idle despots who 
luxuriate in cruelty and in the larceny of human labor. 

The grievances of this nation were sufficient and 
self-evident. They were set forth in the message of 
our chief executive and the dreadful details of unspeak- 
able barbarity that will challenge the credulity of pos- 
terity were witnessed by the consular reports submitted 
with the message. The undischarged responsibility 
for the assassination of our innocent and noble seamen, 
together with the chaotic and inhuman warfare, of 
which it was the culmination, justified the righteous in- 
dignation of a civilized and patriotic people against 
that wicked wreck of idle royalty which had brought 
the evil practices out of the dark and Middle Ages. 
There was no room in the great wide sea for the sails of 
such a sinner. The Western Hemisphere, with its 
splendid, toiling, trading populace, bearing the light of 
liberty and progress, could no longer submit to the curse 
of such an incubus. The dead who perished in Havana 
harbor could not be brought to life by an act of Con- 
gress nor by war, but the children of America who had 
been taught that the starry banner of their country is 
the sure protection of its brave defenders, must not be 
made to blush by the mockery of shameful and dis- 
honorable peace. 

The President of the United States asked for power 
to intervene. Without delay Congress granted it. 
He asked for force on land and sea to execute that in- 
tervention and seventy million people answered 
" Aye " to the just and patriotic call. The eagle finally 
discerned the truth and drove the vulture from its 
prey. 



ROBERT G. COUSINS 89 

The marvel of all the centuries is the achievement 
of American arms in that war. Never was a nation 
subdued so quickly as was Spain, and never was such a 
comprehensive victory won with so little loss of life to 
the conquering power. To be sure, there has been 
death and sickness. At the outbreak of the war we had 
a standing army of something over twenty-five thou- 
sand men. Within one hundred days we had over two 
hundred thousand volunteers equipped and in the field 
— men who were not used to war and many of whom 
had never seen a Southern clime. The number enrolled 
in that victorious army was about the same as the num- 
ber of inhabitants in the city of Washington. The num- 
ber of deaths, including those killed in battle and those 
who have died of wounds and sickness, is about the 
same as the number who have died in the city of Wash- 
ington from natural causes in the same period of time. 
The nation mourns their loss as it mourned the gallant 
crew who manned the Maine. If recompense is possi- 
ble, it shall be witnessed in the vindication of our 
nation's honor and fidelity to its citizens and in the 
march of civilization and its commerce. The Stars 
and Stripes are shining over Puerto Rico and Manila 
Bay. The Antilles and the Philippines have learned 
the names of Dewey and McKinley, and while Cuba 
has lost the ashes of Columbus, it has fallen heir to the 
fadeless names of John Brown and Abraham Lincoln. 

Liberty is infusive. Civilization stops not with the 
seas. Commerce is the ally of civilization. The Al- 
mighty puzzles man with the barriers of mountains and 
the billows of the sea, just to find out who is worthy of 
permanent footholds in the world. There was a moral 
fitness in the war with Spain. Why should barbarism 
blight the world when civilization occupies the ocean's 
wide expanse, or block the course of commerce which is 
the servant of civilization? The sea is treacherous to 
ignorance, to enlightenment it is kind. Queen Eliza- 



90 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

beth used to say, " Quid mihi Maris scrihet? " The 
sea said to Dewey, " Come this way," and in the gray 
dawn of the morning he carried the Stars and Stripes 
— the emblem of civilization — by the cannon to Ca- 
vite, saying to Gridley, " You can fire when you are 
ready," and when the smoke had cleared aw^ay, the tax- 
burdened slaves of the Philippines beheld the banner 
of the stars triumphant in Manila Bay. The sea said 
to Sampson and Schley, to Clark and Wainwright, to 
^'Fighting Bob" and "Praying Philip," "Catch 
Cervera and I'll give your country rich possessions 
near to Nevis of the Lesser Antilles, the birthplace of 
Alexander Hamilton," and in less than an hour the 
sea-gulls looked in vain for a Spanish flag. 



THE REGULAR ARMY 

[From a speech delivered in the House of Representatives, Janu- 
ary 27, 1899.] 

The idea of increasing the regular army of the 
United States was not wholly born of emergencies or 
necessities which have arisen within the past year. 
The proposition to increase the army and the neces- 
sity therefor existed prior to the war with Spain and 
prior to the responsibilities which devolved upon our 
country by reason of its new relations to foreign ter- 
ritory. 

The necessity for national defence, for the preserva- 
tion and protection of property, for security against 
internal disorders of various kinds, was perhaps only 
apparent to those who had fully realized the tremen- 
dous growth of the country and of its business interests 
and commercial projects, and by those who had con- 
sidered the great necessity and wisdom of more ex- 
tended coast-defences, fortifications, and permanent 



ROBERT G. COUSINS 91 

improvements in that line. The fact is that not many- 
realize the rate at which our country grows and the 
rate at which the world is travelling. Time is so noise- 
less that it awakens very, very few. There were thou- 
sands of people in the country willing to sleep in the 
back pews while wisdom and patriotism were urging 
the necessity of a larger navy, and there were even 
those who, apparently awake, contended with much 
noise against the evolution of an American sea-power. 
It is not necessary to compliment the men who had the 
foresight to advocate and to accomplish the develop- 
ment of our sea-power. The world has already wit- 
nessed, and history verifies their wisdom. 

It will not be contended for a moment that the situ- 
ation in the United States requires as large a standing 
army as in other counlries, but we do contend that 
reasonable foresight and prudence would authorize a 
sufficient standing army to protect our interests and 
properties, to preserve our institutions, to maintain 
peace and order, and to protect the liberties of our 
citizens. However much the human mind must long 
for a peaceful adjustment of all difficulties and con- 
tentions, it is the demonstrated fact of history, not 
only in our own country, but in all others, that force 
must be employed, not only in contending with savages 
and those who are semi-civilized, but in dealing with 
civilized men who are disposed to be disorderly. The 
time may come and I hope it will, when force shall not 
be the final arbiter in our worldly affairs; but until 
that time and coveted condition comes, prudence and 
foresight must be exercised in order that the better 
day may not be further removed by reason of default 
in preparation, shortsightedness, and pretended econ- 
omy. Let the history of our own country during the 
past few years bear witness to these propositions and 
to the continuous need which has existed for a larger 
standing army. 



92 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

The spectacle of a great country being obliged to 
transport its troops from one end of a great continent 
to the other in order to suppress a riot or to check the 
murderous hands of savages is certainly ludicrous, to 
say the least. It was said by a Spanish newspaper 
during the late war, in supposed ridicule of our coun- 
try, that the United States had but few soldiers, mostly 
located in the Western portion, and in order to trans- 
port them to the Atlantic seaboard they had to be taken 
over one railroad, on which was located a dangerous 
bridge over Niagara Falls, which was liable to give way 
at any time. But the ridicule of the Spanish journalist 
barely outdoes the tremendous satire of actual facts 
which have for many years existed by reason of the 
failure to suitably prepare for the national defence and 
for the jDrotection of American citizens and properties 
and individual rights. 

Does the history of valor and of glory in the Revo- 
lution prompt the gentlemen of the minority and of 
the opposition to warn America against American sol- 
diery? Does the record of the regulars led by General 
Jackson at New Orleans fill the hearts of gentlemen 
with fear or apprehension for the safety of our citi- 
zens? Did there ever issue from the lips, now closed 
in everlasting love and fame in that silent mausoleum 
by the Hudson, any word of menace to a future citi- 
zen, any thought save peace, any oracle save liberty 
and union ? God spare a grateful country and an ad- 
miring world from any doubt about the matchless mag- 
nanimity of Appomattox ! 

When I contemplate the peerless services, the mod- 
est bravery, and the unselfish devotion of the American 
" regular " to the country's interests and to the public 
welfare; when I consider the wondrous character and 
manhood that have been evidenced in all ranks of the 
regular army, and in services which they have so patri- 
otically rendered with the simple inspiration of their 



ROBERT G. COUSINS 93 

thought of duty, I feel a certain sense of safety and 
security in their presence and in their guardianship 
of public institutions and of law and order, which 
makes me glad to have the opportunity to supply their 
needs and to augment their forces, and there are so 
many instances in the history of their matchless sacri- 
fices and incomparable courage that I cannot withhold 
an expression of gratitude on my own account and on 
behalf of the industrious, law-abiding, loyal people 
for whom I have the great honor to speak in this as- 
sembly. 

In all the years of toil and strife and victory that 
make the history our Republic great the regular army 
has been its shield and buckler. Whether on desert- 
plain, in lava-beds, or forest-jungle, contending with 
the cunning, cruel savages, or on the open battle-field 
in bloody strife with peers, or facing madmen in the 
terrible delirium of anarchistic riots and rebellion, the 
" regular " has been the same unswerving, dauntless 
bearer and defender of the flag. Whether rational well 
and plentifully fed, or surviving on mule-meat till suc- 
cor came from distants posts, aroused by faithful mes- 
engers, the Stars and Stripes have kept his eye with 
sleepless vigilance awake to duty and to deeds of dar- 
ing. Pittance paid and plainly fed, he falters not and 
never complains. 

Living at the lonely frontier-post year in, year out, 
trusted emissary of his Uncle Sam, protector of the 
pioneer, shortening the uneventful hours with games 
of pitch or jesting with his comrades, opening with 
anxious haste belated letters brought by courier or 
stage-coach, telHng him of happenings at home, of life 
and love, of births and deaths and orange-blossoms, 
of failure and ambition and success, of opportunity 
in civil life, and just there, caught in the middle of a 
sigh by signal-taps, he straightens up, a soldier still, a 
soldier every inch of him, ready for his duty in any 



94 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

hour of day or night. Whether he hails from Southern 
clime or I^orthem shore, from classic East or hardy 
Westland, the spirit of his country enters and possesses 
him, and he becomes a comrade and a patriot, faith- 
ful always, always unto death. Wherever he lives, 
we honor him; wherever he sleeps, we mourn, and 
whenever he comes to judgment the record will say: 
Thou faithful servant of the most high God. 



SHELBY CULLOM 

[Extracts from a speech delivered at the Peace Jubilee at Washing- 
ton, Maj 25, 1899.] 

I. 

EIGHT OF POSSESSION 

Fellow-citizens, the United States acquires no ter- 
ritory by conquest and wages no war of grand larceny 
for the criminal seizure of domain. When Spain and 
her army and navy lay prostrate before our forces, 
powerless to resist any demand which we might have 
made, we re-established peace and made an amicable 
settlement of our differences, gave to Spain a fair com- 
pensation in money for the transfer of sovereignty of 
the Philippines, at the earliest moment resumed peace- 
ful relations with our defeated enemy, and diplomatic 
relations were again restored at once. 

Before the war with Spain was over and peace was 
declared, Aguinaldo usurped the control of the insur- 
gent forces, declared himself dictator of the Philip- 
pine Islands, and without excuse assaulted our army, 
and has since disputed the authority of the United 
States in the islands. That ambitious young man 
doubtless hoped that the rich treasure belonging to the 
church authorities in the islands would fall into his 
hands and furnish the means by which he could build 
himself up and wage a successful war against the au- 
thority of the United States. He has been mistaken 
in judgment, and his efforts are coming to naught, as 

95 



96 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

our gallant armies are routing liim and his followers 
as fast as they are met, either in the trenches or behind 
their breastworks. 

The ease is clear that the United States is in the 
right. It would be a disgrace to the nation to do other- 
wise than go f oi-ward until the authority of the United 
States shall be recognized and the insurgents lay down 
their arms. The sovereignty of the United States 
over the Filipinos is as complete as that of any govern- 
ment in the world over its own domain. I have no 
sympathy with men who are taking a course the direct 
effect of which has been and is to encourage the insur- 
gents in the Philippines in their resistance to the au- 
thority of the United States, and which has prolonged 
the struggle and caused the loss of many gallant and 
patriotic American soldiers. 

The right of the Filipinos to govern themselves 
under the principles of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence is not in issue. Aguinaldo is a usurper, a dicta- 
tor, a self-appointed ruler, who attacked the United 
States troops while they were at war with Spain, and 
the people of the islands are no nearer a government 
of their own under him than they had been under 
Spanish rule. The only probable outcome is that the 
United States must exercise sovereignty and control 
in those islands for the time, and as soon as the diverse 
and antagonistic tribal elements shall become better 
adapted and qualified for self-government, a republican 
form of government will be accorded to them. We do 
not need to predict what shall be the policy of the 
United States at some future day. I do not call to 
mind any question of great public importance, upon 
which the solemn determination of this Government 
has ever been invoked, where the ultimate decision 
has not been substantially right. 



SHELBY CULLOM 97 

II. 

HOSTILE CRITICS 

"We became engaged in war with Spain on account 
of Cuba. We pledged ourselves to the world that we 
would hold Cuba until we could give her an organized 
government ; in other words, until we could give Cuba 
a stable government. The war went on. Porto Kico 
fell into our hands. On the memorable First of May 
that gallant hero and patriot with his fleet of ships, 
brave officers and men destroyed the Spanish fleet. 
Finally the army and navy captured the fort and city 
and raised the Stars and Stripes. They say that was 
a glorious victory, but if Dewey had only come away 
after destroying the Spanish fleet, how much better it 
would have been. 

Fellow-citizens, what idle talk. If Dewey had 
come away the war would not have been ended with 
Spain in August, and possibly not at this hour. Spain 
was struck where she did not expect it, and while Spain 
was fighting to retain Cuba her power was broken when 
the United States captured the Philippines. While 
Spain was trying to hold Cuba with a million and a 
half of starving people in it, the United States took 
from her the Philippines and Porto Rico with ten mill- 
ions of people, which resulted in the surrender of 
Cuba. 

The President of the United States, who has hon- 
ored this jubilee with his presence, who is always for 
peace when consistent with the interest and honor of 
his country, is criticised by some because he is trying 
to maintain the sovereignty of the United States over 
the islands which were ceded by Spain to the United 
States. He would be derelict of duty if he did not. 
These critics and gTumblers do not say, " Come away." 



98 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

They know that would be a disgraceful performance. 

But they say, " Pacify the Filipinos! " That is exactly 
what the Government is trying to do. We have an 
able cormnission holding out to the Filipinos in good 
faith the olive-branch of peace, but they can go no 
farther than the army clears the way by the sword. 
The President is assuming no authority that he ought 
not to exercise. He is not usurping the power which 
belongs to Congress. 

When the proper time an-ives, in the next Con- 
gress, or the one to follow. Congress and the President 
will agree on such a policy as may be deemed wisest 
and best for the government of the Philippines, by the 
establishment of such a scheme of government as may 
be deemed best adapted to their condition and to insure 
their greatest welfare. Fellow-citizens, I have faith in 
the wisdom, fairness, and patriotism of our people and 
the present administration, and that what has been 
done and will be done, will be done to the glory of our 
nation, because it will prove a blessing to the oppressed 
people of Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines. If 
the United States is what we claim it to be, a " world- 
power Republic," what has made it so ? What but the 
wisdom of our forefathers in designing its well-propor- 
tioned fabric ? What but the loyalty and devotion, pa- 
triotism, and valor of their sons, in maintaining and 
preserving its integrity and honor with Spartan valor 
wherever it was assailed. 

Our country is in no danger while the fires of pa- 
triotism are kept alive upon the altars of our hearts. 
A patriotic devotion to the welfare and perpetuity of 
our country will inspire an honest purpose to do right 
in all the duties of citizenship. The honor of the na- 
tion is the first consideration by its citizens and by its 
rulers. Its status among the nations must always be 
guarded. This is a country of law and liberty. It did 
not go down from the shock it received in the great 



SHELBY CULLOM 99 

Civil War. " It is governed by the law of growth as 
men and nations are governed. What a glory to the 
nation are the achievements of its great soldiers, sailors, 
and statesmen ! They are the seed-corn of the future." 



III. 
OUR COMMERCIAL RELATIONS 

The old Washington policy of extending our 
commercial relations, but having as little political al- 
liance with foreign powers as possible, is still impera- 
tive. This has been our policy, and in my judgment 
it should continue to be. We desire to be at peace with 
all the world. We are at peace with all nations — with 
Great Britain, the mother-country; with Germany, 
whose people have cast their lot with us and are num- 
bered by millions; France, Russia, Austria, and now 
with Spain, and I might add the South American re- 
publics, Japan and China. We are not ambitious for 
conquest of territory. We desire as a Christian nation 
to benefit mankind. We love liberty, and we will re- 
joice as the nations, one and all, shall give greater com- 
fort and liberty to the great masses of the people. It 
should be the duty of government to lift up the people 
to a plane of greater happiness from generation to 
generation. The whole course and history of the 
United States furnish sufficient guarantee for the con- 
tinuance and maintenance of those humane and liberal 
principles upon which our system was founded. There 
need be no fear that the justice of our people will ever 
permit any policy of tyranny to be established any- 
where under the shadow of the American flag. 

This Government prefers to be a conservator of 
peace rather than to encourage or engage in war. The 
people of this country prefer to be promoters of indus- 



100 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

try and commerce rather than be engaged in bloody 
conflict. We are ambitious to unfurl our sails and 
send our products into every harbor on every sea. At 
no time since the sun rose on the Constitutional Govern- 
ment of the United States has our commerce with for- 
eign nations been so great as in 1898. We are gi'owing 
rapidly to appreciate the world-power of commerce. 

The commerce of the world produces the impulse 
which largely controls the peace of the world. In no 
better way can the United States, as a republic, make 
its power felt. The extension of its commerce means 
the extension of its power in the world. The ships 
of all nations seek our shores and bear away our prod- 
ucts and manufactures to all lands. Our locomotives 
are sent to England, Russia, and China. Our ma- 
chinery and other products will soon reach the markets 
of all the nations. And this interchange and trans- 
portation of industries, extending around the world, will 
do more to spread peace and enlightenment over both 
hemispheres than all other agencies, and make this 
Republic from year to year a greater world-power. 

The nations are becoming, as time passes, nearer 
to each other. Here in our nation's capital we cele- 
brate the end of war in a Jubilee of Peace. The nations 
of the world are in session at the capital of the Nether- 
lands in the interest of the peace of the world. My 
prayer is that the tune may come when " nations shall 
not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn 
war any more," and that " they shall beat their swords 
into ploughshai'es and their spears into pruning-hooks." 



CUSHMAN K. DAVIS 
OUR RELATIONS WITH SPAIN 

[From a speech delivered at Detroit, February 22, 1898.] 

Our relations witk Spain have from tlie foundation 
of this Government ever been exceedingly vexatious. 
We have suffered from her procrastinating diplomacy 
always. While nothing of an overt act of war has 
ever transpired between the two nations, there have 
been several occasions when they have been perilously 
near that act. There has been raging for the last three 
years upon the island of Cuba an insurrection of Cu- 
bans, striving for nationality and liberty, which has 
been met by Spain with measures of unexampled atroc- 
ity and horror that have profoundly stirred the indig- 
nation of the human race, and particularly of the Unit- 
ed States. These are the plain facts, plainly stated, 
and it is well to state them plainly. Such things have 
transpired before in this world; in Poland; in Hun- 
gary; horrible and unexampled massacres have been 
perpetrated in Armenia. 

But my friends, I propose now to speak to you 
a few moments from the head, and not entirely from 
the heart, and want all of you to listen to me in the 
same spirit. It would be no easy task for a more ac- 
complished speaker than I am to fire your indignation 
and precipitate your judgment to conclusions which the 
interests of your own country will not warrant. How- 
ever profoundly our sympathies may be stirred, and 

101 



102 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

the majestic force of our moral influence may go out 
to sustain any people struggling for liberty, or in pro- 
test against tlie infliction of horrors upon them, we are 
still brought back to the question : What is for the best 
interests of the people of the United States, their honor 
and their dignity? What would George Washington 
say if he were dealing with this question to-day? ISTo 
entangling alliances, no complications with foreign 
powers. When the South American republics revolted 
in 1810, the questions of the relation of those countries 
to ours were treated by James Monroe and John 
Quincy Adams, and there were brought to bear upon 
those statesmen — the history of those times reads much 
like the present — the imperious clamors of an excited 
and sympathetic people for an action in that direction 
which was not required by the interests of the Ameri- 
can people, and would not be justified by the laws of 
nations. 

And accordingly, upon a scene where history du- 
plicated the events of recent years, it was not until 
1824 or 1825 that this country recognized the inde- 
pendence, or even the belligerency, of those striving 
nations. And history has justified the wisdom of that 
course. Where American interests are attacked, where 
the hand of arbitrary power is laid upon an American 
citizen, where our national honor or dignity are af- 
fronted, and reparation is denied, then, I say, as we all 
said in the early days of the rebellion, when the ques- 
tion was asked: "Is it peace or war?" " Better war, 
by land and by sea, war with a thousand battles, and 
shaking a hundred thrones." 

But so long, my fellow-citizens, as no American 
citizen is incarcerated or deprived of his liberty, so long 
as not a single American interest is invaded — speak- 
ing from the head, and not from the heart (for God 
knows my heart boats as warmly for them as the heart 
of any person in this room) — speaking for the interests 



CUSHMAN K. DAVIS 103 

of my own country, I implore this audience to be mod- 
erate in what we do or what we purpose. I am not com- 
missioned here to bring you any word. I am speaking 
now of my own personal convictions, solely. I have 
seen that faithful, well-poised, Christian gentleman 
and statesman, William McKinley, weighing in the 
balances this weighty question. I have seen him dis- 
turbed by that awful calamity that has recently be- 
fallen this nation. I have seen him weighing these 
questions, with admiration and approval. It has always 
been a propensity of the American people, in times 
like these, to drive their President. It is part of their 
privilege, and perhaps it is well that it should be so. A 
large proportion of the American people endeavored to 
drive George Washington into a war with France, at 
the close of the last century. A large portion of the 
American people endeavored to drive James Monroe 
and John Quincy Adams into a war with Spain, in the 
first twenty-five yeai-s of the present century. 

Let us take the advice of Captain Sigsbee, and sus- 
pend our judgment upon recent matters. If it shall be 
found that sinister event, and our dark forebodings and 
apprehensions are justified by the investigation, then I 
assure you, my fellow-citizens, that the administration 
of William McKinley will not be found wanting in any 
act which will conduce to the dignity of this nation. 
Does any man suppose — or if he undertakes to suppose, 
I beg him to stop and think — that William McEanley, 
the boy-soldier who stood as a volunteer upon the fiery 
ridges of battle in the dark days of this Government ; 
that John Sherman, a name built like masonry into 
the perpetuity of our institutions ; that your own towns- 
man, Eussell A. Alger, that John D. Long, the Secre- 
tary of the Navy, that the Senate of the United States 
and the House of Representatives lightly feel or slight- 
ly put aside these great questions? It is mighty easy, 
my fellow-citizens, with no sense of responsibility upon 



104 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

a man with no possible consequences of a physical 
character, to say that this or that should be done right 
oif; but impose upon a man in the position of the 
President of the United States, or his Cabinet, impose 
upon your Senators that responsibiHty upon which de- 
pends the dreadful issues of peace and war, and I know 
that sober judgment will approve of the course taken. 



[Extracts from a speech delivered before the Union League Club, 
Chicago, February 22, 1899.] 

I. 

THE TREATY OF PARIS 

Mk. President, the American people and humanity 
have, within the last twelve months, advanced an im- 
measurable distance, never to recede. Nations, like 
individuals, do not shape their ovm destinies. Wisely 
as they may plan by constitutional requirements, by 
statutory enactments, by party policies, nations are 
often subjected to processes and destinations, provi- 
dential and evolutionary, which no resistance can im- 
pede, which no reluctance can long obstruct. 

It is worth all that this war has cost that the hateful 
line between the North and the South has been entirely 
and forever obliterated ; that a condition of sentiment 
and feeling has been brought about by the fusion of an 
all-embracing patriotism, where those who fought for 
the Stars and Bars now fight and have fought under 
the Stars and Stripes, where the grandson of Grant 
serves upon the staff of the nephew of Lee; where 
Joseph T\^ieeler leads the forces of the United States 
to \nctorY against the defences of Santiago. 

Mr. President, the Spanish war was a just and nec- 
essary war. It was sedulously avoided by the United 



CUSHMAN K. DAVIS 105 

States. To prevent it we repressed our sympatliies. 
Against all manner of provocation, of outrage to Amer- 
ican property and citizenship ; against the taking of the 
lives of American citizens, against the destruction 
of scores of millions of property, the American people, 
with great reluctance, abstained from war until it be- 
came indispensably necessary, not only for the cause of 
humanity, but for national honor. AVe bore indignity 
heaped upon indignity until their perpetrators thought 
that they were inflicting them upon national pusil- 
lanimity. It was not until that appalling and colossal 
crime, the destruction of the Maine, aggravated by 
the attempt of Spain to impute that overwhelming 
massacre to the incapacity and want of discipline of 
the American navy — it was not until that event that 
all of the stupendous wrongs and outrages which, not 
only we, but humanity, had suffered, made it neces- 
sary for us to declare war against Spain, in the name 
of humanity and national honor. 

It was a humane war. It was a war in the interest 
of Christianity and civilization. It decreed the ex- 
tirpation of Spain from nearly all her insular posses- 
sions in both hemispheres, and all mankind knew — the 
nations knew — upon which side of that contest hu- 
manity was arrayed. The results of that war were 
sudden, spectacular, and complete. No war was ever 
so shortly ended; no war ever worked such total an- 
nihilation of one of the opposing forces. And finally 
the time came when Spain was obliged to sue for peace. 
The result was that the President of the United States 
appointed and empowered five citizens to proceed to 
Paris to negotiate a final treaty with that monarchy. 

The first point of conflict that we encountered was 
the insistence of the Spanish commissioners that the re- 
linquishment of the sovereigTity of Cuba should be 
made to the United States. This amounted to a ces- 
sion, and — it was asserted — involved the assumption 



106 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

by the United States, and from lier to Cuba, wlienever 
that island should be established as a government, of 
the entire so-called colonial debt of Cuba. That debt 
amounted to seven hundred millions of dollars. Of 
course, we rejected the proposition, and we would have 
rejected it if that debt had been seven hundred cents. 

But, at the same time, the contention was insisted 
upon with great ability and learning, as a principle 
of international law, that, upon a division such as Spain 
was being subjected to at that time, an apportionment 
of the debt was indispensably necessary and followed 
as a legal consequence. Upon that the debate was very 
strenuous. They cited many instances where such an 
adjustment of debt had been made by treaty, and en- 
deavored to exalt these special conventions into man- 
dates of general international law. To that we made 
answer that it was not a principle of international law ; 
that the true principle was that, wherever the integTity 
of the original empire remained, as in the case of Spain ; 
that where any colony had risen in the assertion of 
its liberties and had achieved them, either indepen- 
dently or by the aid of another power, the mother- 
country took the entire burden of the debt, especially 
when a large part of it had been created in an effort 
to subjugate and subdue the colony in the wars which 
had resulted in establishing its independence. 

We cited, as conclusive, the great conquest by Eng- 
land as against France, whereby all the French pos- 
sessions in North America passed under the sovereignty 
of Great Britain. It never was contended that the 
gi*eat French national debt which w^as incurred in that 
contest should be apportioned. We cited the revolu- 
tion of oiu* forefathers, and insisted that it was never 
pretended that any portion of the debt of Great Britain 
should be apportioned and charged to the United States. 
We cited the case of our accessions from Mexico, where, 
notwithstanding her debt was great and afterward 



CUSHMAN K. DAVIS 107 

caused the invasion of that country by France, Eng- 
land, and Spain, it was never pretended that the United 
States was liable for any portion of it. The proposi- 
tion was then yielded by the Spanish commissioners. 
We then agreed upon articles for the relinquishment 
of the sovereignty of Cuba and for the cession of 
Porto Eico, and proceeded to the consideration of 
other subjects. 

Finally we submitted our proposition for the cession 
of the Philippine archipelago, and then, after five\ 
weeks, the Spanish commissioners wheeled around and 
reoccupied their position as to the assumption of the 
colonial debt, which we had supposed they had aban- 
doned; and they said to us, in not entirely diplomatic 
phrase, that it might as well be understood, and they 
did not want to repeat it, that any proposition for peace 
which did not involve the assumption of the proper pro- 
portion of the colonial debt would thwart the negotia- 
tions. Thereupon, after some consultation, the Ameri- 
can commissioners, tired of this wheeling and whirling 
from one point to another, laid down to the Spanish 
commissioners an ultimatum for the relinquishment 
of Cuba without assumption of the debt, for the ces-i 
sion of Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands without: 
assumption of the debt, and gave them a period of 
eight days to answer, with an intimation of the suspen- 
sion of negotiations if a favorable answer should not 
be forthcoming at the end of that time. At the end 
of eight days the Spanish commissioners acquiesced. 

This was one of the most complete diplomatic tri- 
umphs recorded in the annals of international negotia- 
tions. Whatever the American negotiations had de- 
manded had been secured. Against the text, or the 
phraseology, or the completeness of that treaty, no peti- 
fogging cavil has ever been successfully raised. The 
commissioners came back to their country feeling that 
they had secured for this nation all the results that the 



108 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

war had been fought for; feeling, I may say, proud, 
as citizens, as men, as lovers of their country, that they 
had succeeded so well. 



n. 

CESSION OF THE PHILIPPINES 

Me, President, you will expect me to say why we 
demanded the cession of the Philippine Islands. (Prac- 
tically the entire question as to the Philippines was 
finally left by the President to the judgment of the 
X^ American commissioners. It was at first thought that 

/tyJ it would be sufiicient for naval and strategic purposes 
to take the island of Luzon only; but the best military 

^ and naval authorities laid the situation before us from 

a military, naval, and strategic point of view, and made 
it perfectly clear that we must either take the entire 
archipelago or abandon it entirely; that the situs of 
those islands as to each other was such that the acqui- 
sition of one, with a hostile power, or a foreign power 
of whatever disposition, holding any of the others, 
would only reproduce the conditions of Cuba as against 
the United States and create a perpetual threat and 
danger in the waters of the East. In view of the as- 
tounding changes which the Chinese Empire has been 
subjected to, and is destined to further undergo, it was 
necessary for the United States to have a sufficient 
naval station and also a commanding commercial po- 
sition in those waterv Besides, considering the case 
from a higher point of observation, who in this audi- 
ence would have advised us to leave the Philippines, 
or any portion of those islands, to the ineffable atroci- 
ties of Spain? 

When Dewey set the stars of that flag among the 
constellations of those Oriental skies, he imposed upon 



CUSHMAN K. DAVIS 109 

the American people a responsibility of whicli we did 
not dream, and which we cannot avoid. And consider- 
ing conditions to which I shall advert more fully in a 
few moments, it was decided that we should demand, 
and we did demand and receive, the cession of the en- 
tire archipelago of the Philippines. We have taken 
that cession and the Cortes will soon ratify the treaty. 
AVe are already committed to the situation. We can- 
not put it aside or avoid it if we would. We cannot 
escape the resjDonsibilities which events, evolutionary 
or providential, have imposed upon us. Will any 
American citizen advocate, under present conditions, 
that Dewey shall sail away from the harbor of Manila ? 
That our troops shall evacuate Luzon? That we, with 
the armed forces of insurrection arrayed against the 
American flag, shall, in the face of the civilized world, 
evacuate those waters like mere trespassers and remit 
the Philippines to internal anarchy or foreign dismem- 
berment? What would be the result? 

The Filipinos are not at present qualified to govern 
themselves and establish that independent republic of 
which fond enthusiasts and theorists dream. I think 
no man in this audience who reads the newspapers will 
for a moment question that they are not. We cannot 
endure, in view of our past and coming interests in the 
Chinese Orient, that the Philippines shall be dismem- 
bered by foreign powers, as they will be if this Gov- 
ernment removes itself from that situation. Above 
all things, my fellow-citizens, although appearing per- 
haps dimly before us now, I believe there is a profound 
perception in the minds of the American people that, 
back of all this force which has pushed and established 
us, there is an impetus which tells for civilization, for a 
better Christianity, and that the United States, as the 
great evangelist of the nations, is destined to play a 
leading part in the regeneration of the Asiatic Orient. 

It has been asked, " Why did you not take a relin- 



110 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

quisbment of sovereignty as in the case of Cuba, or 
establish a protectorate? " The conditions were not 
the same. We had pledged our faith that we would not 
acquire Cuba. We can establish a protectorate or ex- 
ercise a vigilance over Cuba with comparative ease, but 
; who wishes to establish at once and now a republic 
under our protectorate in the Philippines which can 
involve us in all sorts of complications with foreign 
powers, make us responsible for its diplomatic rela- 
tions, for its failures, delinquencies, and its aggres- 
sions, and involve us in wars which we did not cause, 
but which we must inevitably enter into when once 
caused by another? 

I would treat the Filipinos in this way, considering 
their present condition and their inconsiderate actions, 
stimulated, as I believe, by inconsiderate advice from 
the United States : I would rear them with the hand of 
paternal affection whenever possible, and by the hand 
of paternal chastisement whenever necessary. And 
when the time shall come in the development of that 
people, as it has come by the handling and develop- 
ment by Great Britain of the people of the Straits Set- 
tlements, that, little by little, they can be admitted to 
local autonomy, I would grant it to the fullest extent 
possible; and in the due process of time, whenever 
they should be fit for it, I would adopt the policy that 
Great Britain has announced to her civilized colonies; 
and whenever, in that case, they should want to go, 
they should go; and I would rejoice if, in the process 
of time, an island republic could be established there 
in the Philippines over against, and in friendly com- 
parison with, the island empire of Japan. But, until 
that time shall come, the interest, the honor, the se- 
curity of the American people demand that we shall 
hold the Philippine Islands, not only under our pro- 
tection, but under our rule. 

To us the acquisition of the Philippine Archipelago 



CUSHMAN K. DAVIS 111 

is not the mere gratification of the lust or pride of con- 
quest. Let us all endeavor to look beyond into a visi- 
ible future and mark certain great tendencies, pro- 
ceeding with all the force and regularity of a great 
geological process, and see what is meant by that which 
has thus been transpiring on the surface of human 
affairs within the last fifty years, the tendency (shall 
I call it of humanity, or shall I call it the forces which 
move the human race?) toward the Chinese Orient — 
the Asiatic East. I am not in favor of the dismem- 
berment of the great Chinese Empire — an empire 
which was old when Alexander watered his steed in the 
Indus; an empire so ancient that it has undergone all 
the great experiences of the human race, and has, in the 
process, survived. 1 am in favor of the integrity of 
that empire, and desire that it may become accessible 
to all the civilized world and to its commerce. Ac- 
cordingly, I have said, and I think, that it would safe- 
guard the peace of the world for fifty years if Great 
Britain, Japan, and the United States, as to all those 
Oriental waters, and the lands bordering upon them 
north of the equator, should declare that there should 
be no dismemberment of that immemorial empire. 

But above all things before us for present considera- 
tioh, r'ain "interested that this country shall have its 
share of the trade of that great empire. yCaliforniay 
A^^ashington, and Oregon have scarcely moreTEan two 
millions of people. I want to see the commercial de- 
velopment of that part of our country expand until 
there shall be twenty millions of people there; and I 
do honestly and sincerely believe, from all I have stu- 
died and thought on that subject, that the retention of 
the Philippine Islands, and their adjustment to our 
needs and destiny, is a necessary and indispensable step 
in the advancement of the great results to which I have 
so imperfectly alluded. 

The problem, what we shall do with the Philippine 



112 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Archipelago, is not now before us for immediate solu- 
tion. We are actually now in the possession of all 
those islands. We own them, or shall own them when 
Spain ratifies the treaty of cession, and the question 
of their disposition ought not to be decided at once. 
Must we say now and at once that a territory, the pos- 
session of which may be necessary for our safety, for 
which we have paid twenty millions, for which Ameri- 
can blood has been shed, and may be flowing to-day, 
shall, by a precipitate judgment, without any sufficient 
consideration of the future, be turned over to a body 
of men as to whom all authorities and observers agree, 
and who are demonstrating by their own acts, that they 
are not yet fit for self-government? 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 
OUR NATIONAL GUARD 

[A speech to the Forty-seventh New York Volunteers, at Fort 
Adams, Newport, R. I., August 7, 1898.] 

When a citizen has left behind him his home, his 
family and his business, and enlisted as a soldier, he has 
done his duty to his country. Whether he is ordered 
to Newport or Chickamauga, to Peekskill or Tampa, 
to Cuba or Porto Rico, his meed of praise, his perform- 
ance of duty, is the same. He cheerfully obeys the 
command for the fort or the fight, but longs for the 
fight. 

This war has demonstrated the inestimable value of 
the National Guard of the several States. Our coun- 
try had been at peace for thirty-two years. Congress 
had annually thrown out the demands of the War De- 
partment as unnecessary and extravagant for a nation 
which could never be driven into war. The war itself 
came so suddenly and unexpectedly that, except for 
the navy, we were wholly unprepared. We had neither 
the guns, nor the uniforms, nor the camp-outfit to 
equip fifty thousand, much less two hundred thousand 
men. We had to prepare at once to meet the veteran 
army of Spain, numbering in Cuba, Porto Rico, and 
the Philippines two hundred and fifty thousand, armed 
with the latest and most perfect weapons. Our glori- 
ous, and always ready and reliable regular army mus- 
tered only twenty-seven thousand of all arms. In this 
emergency the citizen-regiments of the National 
Guard, with their discipline, their equipment and their 

113 



114 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

readiness to break every tie and drop every interest at 
the order to march, placed the Government in a 
stronger position for offensive and defensive operations 
in thirty days than the arduous processes of enlistment, 
drill, and education of the volunteers could have done 
in six months. 

I have seen much of the armies of Europe and the 
results of the conscription which compels every citizen 
to serve several years as a soldier. Men resort to every 
device to escape the army. The most rigorous laws 
and severe pimishments are devised for those who mu- 
tilate themselves so as to be unfit for military duty. 
Hundreds of thousands emigrate to foreign lands to 
escape the draft. During this war with Spain we have 
witnessed the fiercest rivalry among the National 
Guard regiments to be called into service. The Gov- 
ernment has been overwhelmed with offers of volun- 
teers. I venture to say that in no war and in no coun- 
try until now have regiments and brigades petitioned 
to be sent to the front. This spirit makes the man be- 
hind the gun. These guns think as well as shoot. 
The Spanish soldier is brave. He fights and dies well. 
But he cannot take the initiative. "Wlien he sees men 
charging across open space and through thickets, un- 
supported by artillery, subject to the raking fire of his 
batteries, the deadly aim of his concealed sharp-shooters 
and the hail from his Mauser rifles, while he is pro- 
tected by trenches; when, though great numbers fall 
and by all military rules the survivors ought to flee, 
they still rush on, shooting and shouting, he thinks the 
devil is loose, crosses himself, drops his gun and runs. 
But these American soldiers are not devils. They are 
the saints of liberty, the church militant of freedom. 
They are the product of institutions which will trans- 
form Cubans, Porto Ricans, Hawaiians, and Fili- 
pinos into similar free agents of right and justice in 
another generation. 



CIIAUNCEY M. DEPEW 116 

You, as volunteers in this war with Spain, are fight- 
ing in a cause which is either right or wrong. The 
overwhehning thought of the houi" and place is that, 
by every manifestation by which His will can be known, 
God is on our side. Events might easily have so hap- 
pened that we should win in the end, after many bloody 
battles and great losses in lives and ships, by the tre- 
mendous odds of our overmastering resources. But at 
Manila, Dewey, with seven ships, was pitted against a 
larger armament on thirteen ships, protected by forts 
and shore-batteries, and yet he sunk the enemy's fleet 
and silenced his forts without losing a man or suffering 
any injury to his cruisers. There were more Spanish 
soldiers under the protection of the barbed-wire fences, 
intrenchments, block-houses, and hills of Santiago than 
in our army which assailed them, and yet they sur- 
rendered. Cervera's fleet ran out to sea under con- 
ditions where all the chances of battle were the sinking 
of one or more of om* fleet and the escape of one or 
more of his, but in thirteen minutes the pride of Spain 
was reduced to junk and had ceased to exist. It seems 
as if Providence has not so much opened up for us a 
destiny as imposed upon us a duty. 

We did not want to possess Cuba, but to give lib- 
erty, law, and justice to her inhabitants. We did not 
covet Porto Rico, and we shrank from the grave re- 
sponsibilities of the government of the Philippines and 
their population of ten millions of varied races, only 
semi-civilized. The fortunes of war have not only 
placed them in our hands, but destroyed the power of 
Spain to either hold or govern them. All the con- 
ditions upon which public opinion was forming have 
changed in six weeks, and we are facing a situation 
wholly different from the one on which multitudes of 
us formed a judgment. It seems as if to let go threat- 
ens the peace of the world and consigns large popula- 
tions to anarchy, and that our capacity for dealing with 



116 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

the greatest problem of our history is on trial. The 
English-speaking world believes we can bring order out 
of chaos and so satisfy all races and religions thus 
thrown under our protection of their safety, and so con- 
vince them of the inestimable benefit of equal laws and 
impartial justice, that out of the Spanish war will come 
a new birth of liberty, a new era of civilization, a new 
development of the hidden treasures of the earth and 
a new and broader destiny for the United States. 

I believe that, if we take into consideration the fact 
that we are not a military power, that a great emer- 
gency came upon us when w^e were unprepared, that 
an army and navy had to be raised to the fighting stand- 
ard and transported to distant countries at emergency 
speed, time will show and history record a marvellous 
work skilfully and efficiently performed, and with 
fewer mistakes or evidences of incompetency than in 
the Franco-Italian, or the Franco-Prussian, or any 
other war of modern times. 



AMERICA'S NEW ERA 

[From a speech delivered at Saratoga, September 27, 1898.] 

jSTot since 1863 have the conditions of the country 
been so interesting or so critical. Then the emancipa- 
tion proclamation of President Lincoln, giving free- 
dom and citizenship to four millions of slaves, brought 
about a revolution in the internal policy of our gov- 
ernment, which seemed to multitudes of patriotic men 
full of the gravest dangers to the Republic. The effect 
of the situation was the sudden and violent sundering 
of the ties that bound tlie past to the present and the 
future. New problems M-ere precipitated upon our 
statesmen to solve, which were not to be found in the 
text-books of the schools nor in the manuals or tradi' 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 117 

tions of Congress. The one courageous, constructive 
party which oui* politics has known for half a century 
solved those problems so successfully that the regener- 
ated and disenthralled Kepublic has grown and pros- 
pered under this new birth of liberty beyond all 
precedent and every prediction. 

Now, as then, the unexpected has happened. The 
wildest dream ever born of the imagination of the 
most optimistic believer in our destiny could not fore- 
see, when President McKinley was elected two years 
ago, the onrushing torrent of events of the last three 
months. Either we are to be submerged by this break 
in the dykes erected by Washington about our Govern- 
ment, or we are to find by the wise utilization of the 
conditions forced upon us how to be safer and stronger 
within our old boundaries, and to add incalculably to 
American enterprise and opportunity by becoming 
masters of the sea, and entering with the surplus of 
our manufactures the markets of the world. We cannot 
retreat or hide. We must " ride the waves and direct 
the storm." 

A war has been fought and won, and vast posses- 
sions, new and far away, have been acquired. In the 
short space of 113 days politicians and parties have 
been forced to meet new questions and to take sides 
upon startling issues. The face of the world has been 
changed. The maps of yesterday are obsolete. Co- 
lumbus, looking for the Orient and its fabled treasures, 
sailed 400 years ago into the land-locked harbor of San- 
tiago, and to-day his spirit sees his bones resting under 
the flag of a new and great country which has found 
the way and conquered the outposts, and is knocking 
at the door of the farthest East. 

The times require constructive statesmen. As in 
1775 and in 1865, we need architects and builders. A 
protective tariff, sound money — the gold standard — 
the retirement of the government from the banking 



118 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

business, and State issues are just as important as ever. 
Until three months ago, to succeed we should have 
had to satisfy the voters of the soundness and wisdom 
of our position on these questions. But at this juncture 
the people have temporarily put everything else aside 
and are applying their whole thought to the war with 
Spain and its consequences. We believe that they 
think and will vote that our war with Spain was just 
and righteous. We cannot yet say that American con- 
stituencies have settled convictions on territorial ex- 
pansion and the government of distant islands and 
alien races. But we can say that public opinion glories 
in our victories and follows the flag. 



ENGLAND AND AMERICA SINCE THE 
SPANISH WAR 

[From a speech delivered at the Lotos Club Banquet to Lord Her- 
schel, New York, November 5, 1898.] 

One of the best signs of our times, tending more to 
peace, humanity, and civilization than even the famous 
proclamation of the Russian Czar, has been, and is, 
the warm and increasing friendship between the great 
electorate — the democracy of Great Britain and the 
people of the United States. Sir Henry Irving told 
me, last summer, a story full of significance. It dem- 
onstrated that when the people of Great Britain and 
the people of the United States understand one another 
they are, in many respects, one people. One of the 
most brilliant and eloquent platform-orators the world 
has ever known was Henry Ward Beecher. During 
the time of our Civil War, when press and upper classes 
of Great Britain were largely hostile to us, Beecher 
went abroad as a popular ambassador from the people 
of the United States to the people of England. 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 119 

Irving said that when Beecher spoke at Manchester 
he was protected by the leading citizens and the police. 
It was half an hour before the crowd would listen to 
a word. The first five minutes of Beecher's speech 
set them wild again, and then Irving thought that 
Beecher would certainly be dragged from the platform 
and killed. By the exertions, however, of the gentle- 
men about the orator, a hearing was finally secured, 
and Beecher developed in his own masterly way the 
common language, the literature, and the ties of the 
two countries, the common origin of their liberty, and 
the common freedom of their people, the interest which 
every man had for himself and his children in the 
perpetuity and strength of free government in the 
American Republic. The first half-hour was silence, 
the second half-hour was tumultuous applause, the next 
hour was unanimous and enthusiastic approval, and at 
the close the crowd insisted upon bearing upon their 
shoulders and carrying in triumph to his lodgings the 
orator, whose cause they then understood. 

It was not until we became involved in a war with 
a European power that Americans appreciated the ex- 
tent and depth of this feeling of kinship among the 
English-speaking peoples across the Atlantic. A 
famous Scotch divine told me that when, on the one 
hand, Emperor "William had sent his telegram encour- 
aging Kruger in South Africa to fight England, and on 
the other, the Venezuelan message of President Cleve- 
land was interpreted on the part of the United States 
as a challenge for a fight, he preached a sermon to a 
Scotch congregation. There are no other people so 
devoted and undemonstrative in the world inside the 
church as the Scotch Presbyterians. " But," said the 
preacher, " when I said that under no conditions would 
the people of Great Britain fight their kin in the 
United States, and that if there was to be fighting it 
must all be from the Americans, there was wild 



120 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

applause, but when I said that if the German Emperor 
moved one step further in the hostile action indicated 
by his telegram, the British fleet would sw^eep his ves- 
sels from the oceans, and British arms would capture 
all his colonies inside of sixty days, the congregation 
rose and gave cheers." 

The war with Spain threatened the equilibrium of 
that delicate instrument known as the European bal- 
ance of power, an instrument so delicate that it re- 
quires eight millions of soldiers and the waters of the 
globe covered with navies to keep it from getting out 
of trim. Every consideration of the associations of 
ambitions in the East impelled the continental powers 
to sympathize with Spain. They proposed that all 
Europe should intervene, as was done in the Turko- 
Grecian War. Great Britain said, "No; we will 
take no part in any international action which is hos- 
tile to the United States." It was then proposed by 
the continental powers that they should inteiwene and 
Great Britain remain neutral. The reply of Great Brit- 
ain was, " In that case England will be on the side of 
the United States." 

That ended the subject of interference in our Span- 
ish war. That action promoted the peace of the world. 
That sentiment, flashed across the ocean, electrified the 
American people. That position, unanimously ap- 
proved in Great Britain by the masses and by the 
classes, received such recognition in the United States 
as only a great and generous people can give for a great 
and generous friendship. That action sent the current 
of the blood of English-speaking people flowing in like 
channels, and was the beginning of the era of good 
fellowship which is to have the most marked influence 
upon the story of nations and of peoples in the future 
history of the world. 

But yesterday there were four great powers govern- 
ing the world, dividing territories of barbarous or semi- 



CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 121 

civilized peoples, and ruling the destinies of mankind. 
They were Great Britain, France, Germany and Rus- 
sia. To-day there are five. The last has come into this 
concert of nations by the unprecedented successes and 
marvellous victories of its hundred days of war. Two 
of the five, the United States and Great Britain, with 
the ties of common language and common law and like 
liberties, will work together naturally in this inter- 
national development. They will not be, and they 
cannot be, bound or limited by a hard and fast alliance, 
offensive and defensive, like that which marks the 
Dreibund or the unknown relations between Russia 
and France. But there are relations, there are ties 
which are stronger than parchment treaties based upon 
selfishness, greed, or fear. They are the ties of blood, 
of language, and of common aims for the loftiest pur- 
poses for which peoples work and governments exist. 



JONATHAN P. DOLLIYER 

[Extracts from a speech delivered in the House of Representatives, 
April 27, 1898.] 



UPHOLD THE PRESIDENT 

It cannot be said that tlie President of the United 
States has plunged this country into war. If he had 
done so, heedlessly putting in peril the welfare of a 
country like this, instead of being entitled as he is to 
the respect and confidence of the world, it would be 
better that a millstone were hanged about his neck and 
that he were drowned in the depths of the sea. He is 
guilty of no such offence against the welfare of his 
country. Instead of seeking to inflame public opinion, 
he has sought to moderate and direct it. Instead of 
throwing away the prospect of a peaceful settlement, 
he has put himself in alliance with every honorable 
influence in favor of such a solution of the perilous 
problem involved. He has been maligned by his 
enemies and misunderstood by his friends, because 
he has had the wisdom to inquire, the prudence to 
prepare, and the statesmanship to look before and 
after. 

If the time should ever come when the American 
people, under the burdens laid upon them by our Cuban 
protectorate, should become resentful and complain- 
ing, there is at least one man in the public life of these 

122 



JONATHAN P. DOLLIVEK 123 

times who will be able to look his countrymen squarely 
in the face and say to them, " I did the best I could 
to save my fellow-citizens from these afflictions." And 
when I hear men, as I have heard them on my own side 
of this House, suggesting that the President has given 
his party in this crisis a timid and hesitating leadership, 
I cannot forbear to express my own satisfaction that 
he has been great enough in heart and brain and con- 
science, in the presence of a public danger, to think of 
his country rather than of his party, and instead uf 
strutting before the world, has been willing to become 
in a real sense the servant of the American people 
whose will has been expressed in the Congress of the 
United States. 

I do not pretend to be able to predict the size or the 
cost of the undertaking on which we have entered, but 
my conviction is that the prompt passage of this bill 
will shorten the war and that in the end we will gain all 
that we lose and infinitely more. We have already 
gained the outspoken sympathy of that great English- 
speaking world of which we are a part. And more im- 
portant than that, we have gained a new sense of the 
unity of our own people and our own country ; a unity 
which has already killed the spirit of sectionalism; a 
unity that has taken the poison out of partisan strife; 
a unity that has brought in the better era of American 
patriotism; an era which, I pray God, may not now be 
sullied by unseemly partisan debate and by the resur- 
rection of obsolete controversies out of which no public 
good whatever can come. 

Nor do I think that our people will ever regret the 
part they have assumed. There are times in the life of 
nations when they move upon impulses so pure that the 
approbation of the national conscience is a full reward 
for all sacrifices, however grievous. Such an hour has 
come to the people of the United States, putting to 
silence the passion of party politics and lifting the 



124 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

whole nation above the care of stocks and bonds and 
lands and offices into the upper atmosphere, where the 
hidden secrets of liberty and civilization are revealed. 
After more than fifty years of patient toleration the 
time had come at last to make an end of the state of 
anarchy in Cuba. As the moment for action ap- 
proached every motion was subordinated in the na- 
tional purpose to the high and patriotic motives which 
mankind everywhere must approve. 

We have not acted upon a sudden provocation, great 
or small. Again and again the nation has ignored its 
interests, conquered its sympathies, and restrained its 
wrath, that no just imputation might be made against 
us in the Supreme Court of the world's opinion. There 
is not a country of Europe which, if situated as we have 
been, w^ould have endured wdiat we have suffered in the 
succession of civil wars which for the last generation 
have desolated that helpless island of the sea. History 
will be our judge that in all these years, for the sake of 
the world's peace, we have chosen to wrong ourselves 
rather than give w^arrant to a suspicion of injustice 
against the government of Spain. We have not cov- 
eted her territory. We have not obstructed her ad- 
ministration. We have not withheld from her dynasty 
or from her people the offices of international courtesy 
and good-^vill. If in times of insurrection and disorder 
we have interposed to promote the tranquillity of the 
island, our mediation has never concealed a hostile 
spirit, nor have we ever laid the weight of a little finger 
on the sovereignty of Spain. 



JONATHAN P. DOLLIVER 125 

11. 

NATIONAL SELF-RESTRAINT 

In the crisis of the past three years we have not been 
careless and unimpassioned spectators. We could not 
be, without despising every instinct of the national life, 
without disowning every tradition of the national his- 
tory. Yet, even under the pressure of popular feeling, 
we have scrupulously kept within the law of nations, 
not even sending a message of hope and courage to the 
struggling army of liberation in Cuba. We have citi- 
zens there whose property has been totally destroyed, 
their business ruined, and they themselves cast into the 
military prisons of Havana or left to beg among the 
miserable refugees about Matanzas. Yet, though we 
speak the English tongue, we have consented to nego- 
tiate for their relief and have feebly tried to do with 
diplomatic correspondence what other countries are 
accustomed to do with shot and shell, 

I do not complain. It was a part of the national 
policy of peace, a continuous incident of our hereditary 
mode of living with the Spanish race. Up to this time 
neither the love of liberty, nor the claims of humanity, 
nor the interests of commerce, nor the wrongs of in- 
jured citizens, have interrupted our amicable inter- 
course with Spain. A forbearance like that, such an 
anxiety to keep peace, born of neither weakness nor 
fear, presents a record of national self-restraint that has 
not escaped the attention of the world at large. Even 
in the troubled time when rumor and hearsay success- 
fully competed with the truth for a place in the head- 
lines of the daily press, the President of the United 
States kept his course, refusing to be coerced or driven 
or turned aside, calm in the approbation of his own 
conscience, grateful for the confidence of men of sense. 



126 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

and indifferent to the noise of cheap and transient 
tongues. 

From the day he entered upon his gi'eat responsibil- 
ity he has kept before his face one supreme and ulti- 
mate thing, the liberty of Cuba, and, with it, one ever- 
present hope, the peace and happiness of his own coun- 
try. If any have grown restless and uneasy in the slow 
movement of events, if this Chamber has been degraded 
by brutal and incoherent slanders against his name, if 
the honest zeal of some has tried to outrun him to the 
goal, and the crafty enthusiasm of others to run over 
him, the time for controversy with all such is past. 

But, as one who has never for a moment doubted his 
wisdom or his patriotism, I venture the prediction that, 
when these days of feverish and babbling criticism are 
forgotten, the world will hold in increasing honor that 
brave and kindly man who, in the midst of an unex- 
ampled clamor, his lips sealed by the very nature of his 
duty, has had the moral heroism to stand, while the 
smallest chance remained, the magistrate of a Chris- 
tian people, exercising the influence of his office for an 
honorable peace. The fact that all these humane as- 
pirations of our Government, everywhere else well 
known, have called out no adequate response, either 
from Havana or Madrid, fully verifies the picture of 
Spain drawn by the historian Buckle : " She sleeps on 
unmoved, unheeding, impassive, receiving no impres- 
sion from the outside world and making no impres- 
sion upon it." 

Even the events of the last two months, in which our 
people have waited in pitiful silence while a board of 
officers, famous and honored in the service, have taken 
the testimony that tells the awful tragedy of our ill- 
fated man-of-war, have not awakened her. That testi- 
mony, including the unanswerable witness of the 
wreck itself, is now before the world, and if the na- 
tional indignation has not long since avenged the 



JONATHAN P. DOLLIVER 127 

ghastly crime it is because all hearts have been moved 
by the revelation of a crime still more ghastly — the 
atrocity which deliberately planned the extermination 
of an innocent community, and, within sight of our 
own shores, has turned the fairest landscape of the 
earth into a hideous spectacle of cruelty and torture. 

The despair of men and women, the bitter cry of 
starving children, the agonies of the living, the skele- 
tons of the dead — these incredible realities of Spanish 
warfare have driven from the minds of the American 
people all thought of themselves, of their commerce 
scattered to the winds, of their property despoiled, of 
then- countrymen cast into dungeons, of their seamen 
entrapped and assassinated; all thought, even, of the 
ragged little army of freedom yonder in the invincible 
mountains of Santiago, and filled the heart of the 
great Kepublic with a realization of its divine mission 
of help and mercy to the perishing multitudes of that 
wasted and stricken population. 

We cannot and will not stop to ask a recompense for 
our stately ship that lies broken and dismantled in the 
most infamous harbor of all the seas. We will not set 
a price upon the lives of our murdered sailors. We 
will not betray our dead. But the nation of America, 
laying down, as I fervently believe, every trace of par- 
tisan dissension, in the fear of God, counting all the 
cost, will exact from Spain indemnity in full for all the 
abuses of the past; not the spoil of subjugated prov- 
inces, but the emancipation of an oppressed race; not 
the ransom of besieged cities, but the creation of a new 
commonwealth; not the worn coinage of a bankrupt 
treasury, but the nobler satisfaction of saluting the flag 
of a free people, once outlawed and dishonored, now 
to be clothed with beauty and with victory, and to keep 
watch ^\dth tender gratitude forever above our unfor- 
gotten heroes of the Maine. 



128 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

STAND BY THE GOVERNMENT 

[A speech delivered at the Auditorium, Chicago, May 7, 1899.] 

In this country everybody has a right to say exactly 
what he pleases — and take the consequences — and all 
over this country there are a lot of little fellows who are 
escaping this day the odium of treason against the 
United States only by reason of their insignificance. 
When a man undertakes to attack his country he ought 
at least to understand the facts in the case and tell the 
truth about it. I undertake to say that the men who 
are filling this country with noisy maledictions against 
the President of the United States are not familiar with 
the facts of our Philippine foot-race. They say that 
President McKinley went to the Philippine Islands for 
the purpose of subjugating them and said when he got 
there, "' Submit or die." President McKinley is not 
the man who took the American people to the Philip- 
pine Islands. You have a photograph of the man 
there. (Pointing to Admiral Dewey's photograph.) 

I saw the order in the President's handwriting di- 
recting our great admiral in Asia to find the Spanish 
fleet and capture or destroy it, but neither the President 
nor the Navy Department expected the admiral to be 
able to bunch them. We expected to be chasing that 
fleet all over the Pacific Ocean throughout the summer, 
and to gather the most of them in by late in the fall at 
any rate. The fact is that nobody in particular took us 
to Manila. When they blew us up in Havana the law 
of gTa^dtation did the rest. We came down in Manila, 
and when we got there we had responsibilities as well 
defined as the Ten Commandments. Having wiped out 
the only existing government that there was there, we 
had the responsibility of the maintenance of order and 
the protection of life, liberty, and property throughout 



JONATHAN P. DOLLIVER 129 

those islands. For one, I am not sorry tliat we stayed 
there. In fact, I don't see how we could very well have 
gotten away. Nobody seemed to suggest that we ought 
to depart. 

Admiral Dewey has never telegraphed that he 
wanted to come home. He has been there now over a 
year, eating canned roast beef and embalmed beef 
without a murmur, and he calculates to remain there 
until the job is done. 

I love the American flag, and I am glad to see it 
here. I never look at it without somehow feeling that 
nobody else is interested in it except me. This Gov- 
ernment has borne that flag now for more than a cen- 
tury. We have trusted our lives to it. We are willing 
to-day to trust our children and our children's children, 
all we have and all we hope for, to the institutions and 
the flag of the United States, and yet there are men in 
this city who are teaching the youth that there is more 
hope for liberty in the proclamations of the half-naked 
Malay warriors than there is in the flag of the Ameri- 
can Republic. I say that such an American is not only 
a little one, but a very little one. 

Why shouldn't the American people now step out 
into the arena of this world's aifairs and do something 
for the progress of the human race? I don't know how 
you people are fixed on theology, but I have been 
taught to believe, with Matthew Arnold, in the power 
in this universe that makes for righteousness, and I 
have been brought up in the faith, so well expressed by 
Alfred Tennyson, that there is an increasing purpose 
running through the ages giving coherence and reason 
to the chaos of our poor human affairs. I w^ouldn't 
live in this world unless I felt that there was upon the 
progress of society the divine hand. God has favored 
and prospered the American Republic, and yet it has 
only been one generation since we were good for any- 
thing in the arena of human affairs — until the old 



130 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Union army finished its work nobody knew whetlier 
we would last another ten years or not. But to-day, 
thanks to the veterans, every child in America feels 
in his little heart that our country belongs to the cen- 
turies, to the ages of the world. 

Forty years ago we could not go, even under divine 
guidance, in any dii-ection without carrying with us 
human slavery and the clank of chains. To-day, wher- 
ever we go, we go as a united and strong people, every 
line of sectional spirit wiped out. I don't know how it 
seems to you, but it seems perfectly credible to me that 
the good providence of God, having welded the Ameri- 
can people into a firmer and better union, protected by 
the loyalty of every section of our common country, is 
about to use the Republic as an instrument in the di- 
vine hand for enlarging the area of civilization and for 
widening the outlook of human liberty; for making 
new outposts for social progress in the ends of the 
earth. And if that should be our destiny and that our 
duty, I want the statesmanship of these times to ap 
proach those responsibilities as our army and navy 
approach theirs, in the fear of God, as old Bismarck 
used to say, and of nothing else. 

I believe in our great Republic. I back the United 
States of America against the world, l^or do I hesi- 
tate to say that since the good days of Abraham Lincoln 
there has not been at the helm of our affairs a steadier, 
kindlier, braver hand than the hand of William Mc- 
Kinley, President of the United States. 



JOHN TEllIPLE GRAVES 

[Extracts from an anniversary speech delivered at Augusta, Ga., 
July 4, 1898.] 



OVR COUNTRY'S BIRTHDAY 

This is tlie birthday of our country. One hundred 
and twenty-two years have blessed and prospered it — 
at home and abroad, and among all nations in every 
land its honor is exalted, and its name has been glori- 
fied on every sea. The first thought that fills me here 
is the changed relation that a century has made in our 
attitude toward the nation from which we sprang. 

We celebrate the Declaration which struck the 
shackles that bound us to our Anglo-Saxon mother, 
and we voice the blood-bought liberty which, at Con- 
cord and Lexington, at Eutaw and at Yorktown, we 
won from England at the point of our patriot swords. 
Eor a hundred years we have made this the hour in 
which the shriek of the eagle has illustrated our jubi- 
lant satisfaction with ourselves and our defiance to the 
British lion, whose mane we have stroked without 
affection, and whose tail we have twisted without re- 
morse. But behold the marvel of America, full-grown 
and militant, with her sword at the throat of a kingdom 
of Europe, and England, once our historic enemy, 
standing alone among the nations as our loyal and 
indispensable friend. 

It does not matter what diplomacy may say, or 
131 



132 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

policy may dictate, or scepticism may protest, I know 
that the people of this country, reading the facts upon 
their open face, believe through all their ranks that 
England, lifting her mailed hand from the deck of her 
incomparable navy, has kept back from us in this na- 
tional crisis the meddling intervention of European 
monarchies and cried, "Hands off," to the military em- 
pires of the East. The old mother has forgiven the tru- 
ant child. She has compassed the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence with fraternity. She has nobly forgotten 
Bennington and Saratoga, and in the great pulsing tie 
of blood and memory, she stands as the bulwark of her 
mighty offspring against the greed and selfishness of 
the world. 

I do not commit myself here to the policy of en- 
tangling alliances, which Washington and Jefferson 
opposed. I am not ready yet to advocate the bond 
of defence and offence, which is rising like a shib- 
boleth between the races; but standing here in my 
humble place, and speaking boldly for a people whom 
I know, I do not hesitate to say that if ever our states- 
men shall forget England in her own need and peril 
and fail to remember the noble service of to-day, then, 
for the first time in all our history, we shall have cause 
to blush for the citizenship which has been the pride 
and glory of our lives. Xot in sixty years, Mr. Presi- 
dent, have we enjoyed such an anniversary as this. 
A reconciled and reunited country celebrates the na- 
tion's birthday. Kot in lip-service nor in platitudinous 
profession, but in heartfelt reality the States of the 
Union sit once more at the feast of our fathers, in num- 
bers unbroken and with unfeigned and beautiful fra- 
ternity. It is worth the war with Spain to have wit- 
nessed the complete and practical unification of the 
Republic. 

Never since Appomattox, and for years before it, 
have we beheld spectacles so inspiring. Every wound 



JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES 133 

of the Confederacy lias healed and the whole body of 
the country is sound and glowing with harmonious 
destiny. Shoulder to shoulder, our boys in blue and 
our boys in gray are marching against a co mm on 
enemy. Dixie mingles everywhere its inspiring mel- 
ody with the strains of Yankee Doodle. The battle- 
flags of the Confederacy, pining in Northern capitals, 
ai-e lifting their folds at the bidding of the captor, and 
are coming home to repose forever in the capitals of the 
South. Joe Wheeler, of the Confederate horse, rides 
in Cuba at the head of the Union cavalry, and the great 
green country is ringing with the praises of our cavalier 
of dashing memories bearing the immortal name of 
Lee. 

No more important, no more heroic, attitude has 
been assumed by any human government than is rep- 
resented by the flag of our country at Santiago de Cuba 
on this anniversary day. For even while we speak, 
Shafter with the sword and Wheeler with his sabre, 
and Sampson with his guns are carving and thundering 
upon the records of human history the highest tribute 
to national character that has ever been made by glori- 
ous purpose and magnanimous war. Not since the 
Crusaders' lance was levelled against the infidel, nor 
even then, was a battle waged upon a nobler line than 
this. We are fighting for an enlargement of the area 
of human freedom; we fight for liberty; we fight for 
humanity; we fight for our fellow-men — to free our 
friends from despotism, to redeem our neighbors from 
oppression. 

Tor three years we have been giving to Cuba the 
cup of cold water in charity's name. We are giving 
now to her enemies — and God's — the yard of cold steel 
for humanity's sake. In an age of greed and grabbing, 
in an age of selfishness and apathy — just within hail of 
the kingdoms who have stood still while the Unspeak- 
able Turk butchered the Christians of Armenia — we 



134 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

are rebuking the selfishness of Christendom and mak- 
ing a glorious example for them all. Without a 
thought of conquest or an impulse of aggrandizement, 
untouched by malice and untainted by ambition, the 
Republic of Liberty has lifted its arm in the cause of 
humanity and set its banner far in the fore-front of the 
moral forces of the world. The nations of the earth 
behold the spectacle with amazement, growing to ad- 
miration, and our own people, scarcely realizing as yet 
the nobility of their own expression, are following with 
a confidence that shall deepen to devotion. 



n. 

OUR LOFTY PURPOSE 

The grandeur of this war is in its unselfishness. Its 
moral exaltation rests in its disinterested motive. Let 
us see to it that it is kept within these glorious limits. 
Step but a foot beyond this lofty plane; inject an ounce 
of greed into the noble purpose of the war ; grasp but an 
acre that is not our own, and the glow will fade from 
our banners and the glory from the beautiful record 
that we are making in history now. 

We may hold the Philippines under a protectorate 
for a ransom of the war. But its people, misgoverned, 
debauched and trampled for two hundred years, must 
be given the liberty which we have promised Cuba and 
which we enjoy ourselves. We may ask of Cuba a sum 
to reimburse the treasure we have spent in her service, 
counting our hero-blood as free. We may divest from 
Spain the revenues of Porto Rico until our war taxes 
are relieved. 

But the banner of the Republic that has been lifted 
in the name of liberty must not be stained with the 
lust of power. The whole faith of the Government, 



JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES 135 

expressed and implied, is pledged to unselfislmess and 
humanity. The Republic must be true to itself. It 
must be loyal to its ideals. It is too great to force 
allegiance upon the helpless, too noble to compel the 
homage of the weak. This may be Arcadian, but it 
is right. I take the moral ground because it is the 
highest ground. It is the ground on which we built 
the war. If these peoples ask to float our flag and pay 
tribute to om- Government for protection, we may con- 
sider the request with honor, guaranteeing the liberty 
of States shadowed by the flag and consecrated by the 
Constitution. 

But they must be as free to choose as we are free. 
Our mission is beneficent. Our purpose is peace. One 
act of coercion would dim the glories of Manila and 
stain the history of a hundred years. There are men 
who say that the battle of Manila was the sixteenth 
decisive battle of the world; that it opens a future we 
cannot escape ; that it presents an opportunity we can- 
not shrink ; that God has put these islands in our hands 
to hold; that manifest destiny is carrying us onward, 
forward, to grapple with the powers of Europe, and 
that wherever " Old Glory " has been lifted to the 
breeze it would be impious to tear it down. 

But I answer here that the battle of Manila decides 
our moral status in the world ; that the future it opens 
points to duty above temptation; that the opportunity 
it offers is for our glorious consistency; that God gives 
the islands, not as a possession, but a trust; that our 
destiny is pacific, and that if the beautiful banner of 
our country, consecrated to liberty and humanity, 
shall stoop to selfishness and greed, it becomes a dis- 
honored flag, flaunting its shameful lie in the face of a 
perjured government. 

I do not believe that public opinion will ever permit 
us to see that day. We are big enough and great 
enough to rest in our own possessions for a thousand 



136 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

years. And if we have surplus strength and energy to 
give, we can expend it in defending this Western Hemi- 
sphere from the greed of monarchies and in leading the 
continents of Xorth and South America serenely in the 
path of liberty and progress and the cross. 

We will do our work. We will finish our war. We 
will free our neighbors and disperse our enemies. And 
when the time of settlement shall come we will liqui- 
date according to our own judgment and without the 
dictation of any foreign power. We owe this to our- 
selves and we owe it to the hemisphere. We are not 
Japan ; we are great enough to do right and big enough 
to do it bravely, and neither Germany, nor France, nor 
Italy, nor Russia, nor standing armies, nor things 
marine, nor kaiser, nor king, nor emperor, nor czar, 
nor any other creature shall separate us from the power 
and right to settle our own affairs in our owti good 
time and in our own great way, and to the one grand 
end that our duty and our self-respect must make the 
satisfaction of the nations. 

We are on trial now, in full view of mankind, focal- 
izing the gaze of nations upon our country, and our 
attitude of magnanimity is exciting the wonder and 
the sceptical expectation of the civilized world. Never 
has a higher duty appealed to a greater people than to 
walk worthy of the mission whereto we are called, 
to bear ourselves as nobly in action as we have planned 
in council; to love our country, to voice our loyalty, 
to preserve our consistency, to remember our mission, 
to keep our faith serene, and never once to exhibit to 
the waiting and watching monarchies of Europe a sign 
of weakness, an expression of discouragement or a 
token of waning enthusiasm for our principles, our 
government, or the grand enterprise in which we have 
embarked. 

And when peace shall come — as it will come with 
honor — and tranquillity return in glory, it will be 



JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES 137 

our glorious duty to fall in line with the great patriotic, 
progressive philanthropy of the age — to be mag- 
nanimous to our enemies, faithful to our allies, gen- 
erous to our friends, inspiring to our neighbors, and 
grateful above all things to the Omnipotent Ruler, who 
has given us the best of countries, the most beneficent 
of all governments, the noblest of all destinies; and set- 
ting our bow in the cloud, has made us, in His image 
and for His glory, the happiest and the greatest people 
in the world. 



III. 
OUR COUNTBTS FLAG 

Me. President, as I sink into silence behind the last 
gleaming of this twilight hour, let me salute the colors 
that surround me — the flag of our fathers — the flag 
of the Union, and now, please God, our flag forever. 
I do not forget here that dear old flag of tender mem- 
ories, consecrated in heroic convictions and furled for- 
ever over an issue never to be reopened. 

But the last happy duty of this happy hour is to lift 
my head and my heart and my hand in loyalty to the 
standard that carries all the glory of the present and 
all the hope and promise of the future. It is the sym- 
bol of liberty, and wherever it streams men see day- 
break bursting on the world. " ISTot another flag in 
history," says a great American, " has such an errand 
or goes forth to carry such tidings on land and sea." 
The stars upon it are to the pining nations like the stars 
of God, and the stripes are beams of morning light. 
Wherever this flag flies and men behold it, they see 
in its sacred emblazonry no ramping lion, no shrieking 
eagle, no embattled castles, no signals of despotism, no 
insignia of imperial authority. 



138 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

It is the banner of dawn. It is the flag of the morn- 
ing, the emblem of peace, the signal of liberty, the un- 
bought, imshamed, unconquered, glorious, over-all- 
victorious, star-spangled flag of the free. And as we 
behold it streaming now — we who are veterans and 
the sons of veterans — we wdio lost the cause that rose 
without shame and fell without dishonor — with the 
blood pulsing in veins unclotted by a single bitter 
memory, we may take it to our hearts and lift it above 
our heads, and thank God that it waves at last above 
a reunited country, with its white stripe of peace and its 
red stripe of kindred and the azure radiant wath stars 
which speak the Providence that makes us — now and 
forever — one people in this great Republic of the free. 



GEORGE F. HOAE 

[Extracts from a speech delivered in the Senate, January 9, 1899.] 

I. 

LUST OF EMPIRE 

I AM to speak for my country, for its whole past, 
and for its whole future. I am to speak to a people 
whose fate is bound up in the preservation of our great 
doctrine of constitutional liberty. I am to speak for 
the dead soldier who gave his life for liberty that his 
death might set a seal upon his country's historic glory. 

Certainly, Mr. President, no man can justly charge 
me with lack of fr *th in my countrymen, or a lack of 
faith in the " iles on which the Republic is 

founded. If, ^^ irty years' service within these 

walls, or duri] ;: y^ars of constant, active, and ab- 
sorbed interes . Blic affairs, there has ever come 
from my lips U -ance showing lack of faith in the 
people, in the .ep *lic, in country, in liberty, or in 
the future, let them be silent now. I thank God that 
if I have no ot^ ^v G istian -virtue, I have at least in 
the fullest mic: t which stands as the central 

figure in the migi. up which the apostle says is 

forever to abide — Lo' ^ thank God that as my eyes 
grow dim they look ti a fairer country, a better 

people, a brighter fu 

I have in my humOic .voy; — poor enough, I know, 
but it was my best — defended the character of the 
American people, their capacity for self-development; 

139 



140 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

the character of the great legislative bodies through 
which that Government is exercised, whenever and by 
whomsoever assailed. I do not distrust them now\ 
But the strongest frame may get mortal sickness from 
one exposure, the most vigorous health of life may 
be destroyed by a single drop of poison, and what 
poison is to the human frame the abandonment of 
our great doctrine of liberty will be to the Republic. 
After all, I am old-fashioned enough to think that 
our fathers, who won the Kevolution, and who framed 
the Constitution, were the wisest builders of states the 
world has yet seen. I think that they knew where to 
seek for the best lessons of experience and they knew 
how to lay down the rules which should be the best 
guides for their descendants. 

They did not disdain to study ancient history. They 
knew what caused the downfall of the mighty Roman 
Empire. They read, as Chatham said he had read, the 
history of the freedom, of the decay, and the enslave- 
ment of Greece. They knew to what she owed her 
glory and to w^hat she owed her ruin. They learned 
from her the doctrine that while there is little else that 
a democracy cannot accomplish it cannot rule over vas- 
sal states or subject peoples without bringing in the 
elements of death into its own constitution. 

The Americans have been aptly called the Greeks of 
modern times. The versatile, enterprising, adventu- 
rous Yankee has been likened to the people of Athens, 
who were of the Ionian race, and the brave, constant, 
inflexible men of the South to the brave, constant, and 
inflexible Sparta, whose people were Dorians. 

There are two lessons our fathers learned from the 
history of Greece which they hoped their children 
would remember — the danger of disunion and domes- 
tic strife, and an indulgence in the greed and lust of 
empire. The Greeks stood together against the power 
of Persia as the American States stood together against 



GEORGE F. HOAR 141 

the tyranny of England. For us the danger of dis- 
union has happily passed by. Our Athenians and our 
Spartans are bound and welded together again, each 
lending to the other the strength of their steel and the 
sharpness of their tempered blade in an indissoluble 
Union. Our danger to-day is from the lust of empire. 
It is a little remarkable that the temptation that be- 
sets us now lured and brought to ruin the Athenian 
people in ancient times. I hope that we may be able 
to resist and avert that danger as we resisted and 
averted the peril of disunion. 



II. 

GOVERNMENT OF THE PHILIPPINES 

The Declaration of Independence declares that 
whenever any form of government becomes destructive 
of the ends therein stated it is the right of the people 
to alter or abolish it, and then institute a new govern- 
ment, laying its foundation on such principles and 
organizing its powers in such form as to them shall 
seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. 

But the Senator from Connecticut thinks we have 
the constitutional right ourselves to institute a new 
government for that people, laying its foundation on 
such principles and organizing its powers in such f onn 
as shall seem to us most likely to effect our safety and 
happiness without giving them the slightest voice in 
the matter. And further, the Senator must think, 
although he does not say so — I suppose he expects to 
vote so — that we have the right to tm'n our cannon, 
bayonets, and ships of war and armies upon that peo- 
ple, if they attempt to exercise this right, and prevent 
them from doing it. 

Thackeray, no mean judge of noble art, no mean 



\ 



142 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

judge of noble actions, was one day crossing the ro- 
tunda of this Capitol in company with Charles Sumner. 
He stopped before the picture where the genius of the 
great artist of Connecticut has delineated on the im- 
perishable canvas the scene when the Declaration of 
Independence was presented by Jefferson to the solemn 
sitting over which Hancock presided, and the new na- 
tion, born on April 19, 1775, was baptized in the faith 
of our new gospel of liberty. He stood for a moment 
silent, and then said to Mr. Sumner, " That's your 
painter." 

Surely he was right. The foremost action of hu- 
man history is fitly represented by the great work which 
we fondly hope is to be as enduring as time, enduring as 
the Eepublic, enduring as liberty. It is there in the 
foremost place of honor which can be found on this 
earth. No Parthenon, no St. Peter's, no Palace of the 
Escurial, no Sans Souci, not Westminster Abbey itself 
can equal, at least to our eyes, this spot where forever a 
great and free people declares its constitutional will. 
Beneath the great dome to which the pilgrim from 
afar first repairs when he visits the Capitol of his coun- 
try hangs the great picture which delineates the scene 
when the nation was first baptized into immortal life. 
It is not only the independence of America which was 
then declared — it was the dignity of human nature 
itself. 

"When Samuel Rogers visited the Dominican Con- 
vent at Padua, an aged friar showed him the famous 
picture of " The Last Supper " in the refectory of the 
convent. He said, " I have sat at my meals before it 
for seven and forty years, and such are the changes that 
have taken place among us — so many have come and 
gone in that time — that when I look upon the com- 
pany there, upon those who are sitting at that table, 
silent as they are, I am sometimes inclined to think 
that we, not they, are the shadows." As administra- 



GEOKGE F. HOAR 143 

tions, terms of presidential office, begin and end, as 
Senators and Representatives come and go before the 
silent figm'es in that immortal picture, it seems to me 
that we are but the shadows, while Hancock and Jef- 
ferson and Adams and Franklin and Ellsworth and 
Li\angston are still deliberating, still acting, still alive. 

Ah, ]\Ir. President, shall we turn it with its face to 
the wall? Shall the scroll first be stricken from the 
hand of Jefferson and another put there which shall 
read, " Governments derive their just powers from 
the consent of the governed — some of them. Men are 
created equal — some of them. Taxation and repre- 
sentation go together — for us, not for other men. Life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness are held in the 
Philippine Islands at our will and not at the vdll of 
the people." And then shall we turn the picture with 
its face to the wall, and put instead of it a representa- 
tion of some great battle where the guns of our navy 
and of our army are turned on the men struggling for 
their liberty at Iloilo? 

iSTow, Mr. President, our friends tell us that all this 
is emotion and rhetoric and sentiment. They tell us 
that it does not belong to the domain of practical states- 
manship, or to the conduct of the affairs of life; that 
these are things we think wdien we talk, and that we 
are thinking of quite other things when we act and 
vote. Well, the doctrines I stand upon are the doc- 
trines of the most practical statesmen of the most 
practical generation that ever lived on the face of the 
earth. 

These sentiments, wrapped in a few sentences, not 
equalling in compass the Ten Commandments or the 
Lord's Prayer, amplifying only a little the Golden 
Rule itself, have turned out to be a practical force in 
this world of ours. The Puritans took them for their 
rule, and in one brief, crowded century they made 
England, which had been trembling before Spain, 



144 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

whose knees had smote together before Holland, whose 
monarch had been the pensioner and whose treasury 
had been the tributary of France, the greatest power 
the w^orld had ever seen. It is these that make " world- 
powers." 

Borne up by them our fathers crossed the Atlantic, 
and with their invincible might builded on its sure 
foundations this temple that covers the continent and 
whose portals are upon both the seas. Is there any 
practical statesmanship, is there any cunning of the 
politician, is there any struggling of power, is there 
any seeking for office, is there any party discipline 
which has ever wrought in all history such things as 
these half-dozen little sentences have wrought? Are 
there any statesmen in American history, among the 
living or the dead, whom the people love and honor 
as they do the men who planted their feet on these 
truths, and who bore witness to them in life and in 
death? 



III. 
THE DIGNITY OF LABOR 

The one great lesson which sums up the teaching 
of American history during our century of constitu- 
tional life is the dignity of labor. It is an unquestion- 
able truth that no tropical colony was ever settled by 
men not born in tropical climes, for the purpose of 
finding work. There was scarcely ever a tropical col- 
ony successful at all. There was never a tropical 
colony successful except under the system of contract 
labor. It is to be set up, enforced, and administered 
by the agencies of the Eepublic of the United States, 
if we are to succeed in such administration at all. 

Our fathers taught us the priceless value of national 



GEORGE F. HOAR 145 

credit and to keep free from the burden of national 
debt. We have thought until lately that our strength 
came in a large part from our unsullied and unequalled 
public credit. If we were compelled in self-defence 
to enter into a contest with the strongest or richest 
power on earth our credit would remain unimpaired 
until our opponents were bankrupt. If, in time of 
war or public danger, we were compelled to contract 
debt we have supposed that the only policy of dealing 
with it in time of peace was to pay it. But now the 
Senator from Connecticut seems to contemplate that 
we shall embark on a permanent system of national 
expenditure which will put this nation under an obli- 
gation, the equivalent of which will be a national debt 
greater than that of any other nation on the face of 
the earth. 

Have you reflected that a permanent increase of our 
expenditures of $150,000,000 a year — which we can- 
not avoid, and from which we cannot withdraw — ia 
precisely the same thing as adding to our national debt 
$5,000,000,000, capitalized at three per cent., which 
is more than the Government is now paying, and that 
a permanent increase in our expenditures of $300,000,- 

000 a year is the same as increasing our annual national 
debt $10,000,000,000, capitalized at three per cent? 

1 think that it can easily be demonstrated that the 
policies in which we are asked to embark involve a 
national expenditure much larger than the amount I 
have named. Our civil list, already so enormous, must 
be enormously increased. Instead of taking from the 
people by fair competition, or even by fair selection, 
men to take their share in self-government, we must 
have in the future, as they have in England, a trained 
class, whose lives are to be spent, not in self-govern- 
ment, but in the government of other men. At the 
close of the nineteenth century the American Republic, 
after its example in abolishing slavery has spread 



146 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

through the world, is asked by the Senator from Con- 
necticut to adopt a doctrine of constitutional expansion 
on the principle that it is right to conquer, buy, and 
subject a whole nation, if we happen to deem it for 
their good — for their good as we conceive it, and not 
as they conceive it. 

Mr. President, Abraham Lincoln said, " No man 
was ever created good enough to own another." No na- 
tion was ever created good enough to own another. No 
single American workman, no humble American home, 
will ever be better or happier for the constitutional 
doctrine which the Senatorfrom Connecticut proclaims. 
If it be adopted here, not only the workman's wages 
will be diminished, not only will the burden of taxation 
be increased, not only, like the peasant of Europe, will 
he be bom with a heavy debt about his neck, and will 
stagger with an armed soldier upon his back, but his 
dignity will be dishonored and his manhood discrowned 
by the act of his own Government. 

I do not agTce, Mr. President, that the lesson of our 
first one hundred years is that the Declaration of In- 
dependence and the Constitution are a failure, and 
that America is to begin the twentieth century where 
Spain began the sixteenth. The Monroe doctrine is 
gone. Every European nation, every European alli- 
ance has the right to acquire dominion in this hemi- 
sphere when we acquire it in the other. 

Our fathers dreaded a standing army, but the Sena- 
tor's doctrine, put in practice anywhere, now or here- 
after, renders necessary a standing army, to be reen- 
forced by a powerful navy. Our fathers denounced 
the subjection of any people whose judges were ap- 
pointed or whose salaries were paid by a foreign power; 
but the Senator's doctrine requires us to send to a for- 
eign people judges not of their own selection, appointed 
and paid by us. The Senator's doctrine, whenever it 
shall be put in practice, will entail upon us a national 



GEOEGE F. HOAR 147 

debt larger than any now existing on the face of the 
earth, larger than any ever known in history. Our 
fathers dreaded the national tax-gatherer, but the doc- 
trine of the Senator from Connecticut, if it be adopted, 
is sure to make our national tax-gatherer the most fa- 
miliar visitant to every American home. 

Our fathers respected above all the dignity of labor 
and rights of human nature. The one thing created 
by God a little lower than the angels was man. And 
they meant to send abroad the American flag bearing 
upon its folds, invisible perhaps to the bodily eye, but 
visible to the spiritual discernment, the legend of the 
dignity of pure manhood. That legend, that charter, 
that fundamental truth, is written in the opening sen- 
tences of the gTcat Declaration, and now the Senator 
from Connecticut would repeal them. He would re- 
peal the great charter of our covenant. 

No longer, as the flag floats over distant seas, shall 
it bear on its folds to the down-trodden and oppressed 
among men the glad tidings that there is at least one 
spot where that beautiful dream is a living reality. 
The poor Malay, the poor African, the down-trodden 
workman of Europe, will exclaim, as he reads this new 
doctrine, " Good God! Is there not one place left on 
earth where in right of my manhood I can stand up 
and be a man?" This spasm of folly and delusion 
will surely pass by. Whether it pass or no, I thank 
God I have done my duty, and that I have adhered to 
the great doctrines of righteousness and freedom which 
I learned from my fathers, and in whose service my 
life has been spent. 



148 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 



TEE DELIRIUM OF CONQUEST 

[From a speech delivered in the United States Senate, April 17, 
1900.] 

Mb. Peesident, it seems to me that these are grave 
questions. They are things worth thinking of by 
American Senators and American statesmen. They 
go down to the roots of our national life. They are 
not of yesterday, of to-day, or to-morrow alone. They 
were thought of when our country was settled. They 
were debated during the century's long strife that pre- 
ceded the Eevolution. The minds of the Fathers 
were full of them. Their answer to them was written 
in the imperishable lines of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and in the constitutions of the States and of 
the nation. We have been brought up to think of 
them through the whole of our first century of great- 
ness and of glory. We reaffirmed our doctrine about 
them again when we celebrated our centennial in 1876. 
They were daily and nightly on the thoughts of Abra- 
ham Lincoln and Charles Sumner. If Lincoln and 
Sumner should repeat what they thought of them now, 
they would be denounced as " little Americans," as 
" squaw men," and blacklisted as traitors. 

Certainly the flag should never be lowered from any 
moral field over which it has once waved. To follow 
the flag is to follow the principles of freedom and hu- 
manity for which it stands. To claim that we must 
follow it when it stands for injustice or oppression is 
like claiming that we must take the nostrums of the 
quack doctor who stamps it on his wares, or follow 
every scheme of wickedness or fraud, if only the flag 
be put at the head of the prospectus. The American 
flag is in more danger from the imperialists than there 
would be if the whole of Christendom were to com- 



GEORGE F. HOAR 149 

bine its power against it. Foreign violence at worst 
could only rend it. But these men are trying to stain 
it. 

Mr. President, it was once my good fortune to wit- 
ness an impressive spectacle in this Chamber, when 
the Senators answered to their names in rendering 
solemn judgment in a great State trial. By a special 
provision each Senator was permitted, when he cast 
his vote, to state his reason in a single sentence. I 
have sometimes fancied that the question before us 
now might be decided not alone by the votes of us 
who sit here to-day, but of the gTcat men who have 
been our predecessors in this Chamber and in the Con- 
tinental Congress from the beginning of the Republic. 

Would that that roll might be called. The solemn 
assembly sits silent while the Chair puts the question 
whose answer is so fraught with the hopes of liberty 
and the destiny of the Republic. 

The roll is called. George Washington: "No. 
Why should we quit our own, to stand on foreign 
ground? " 

Alexander Hamilton : " No. The Declaration of 
Independence is the fundamental constitution of every 
State." 

Thomas Jefferson: "No. Governments are insti- 
tuted among men deriving their just powers from the 
consent of the governed. Every people ought to have 
that separate and equal station among the nations of 
the world to which the laws of nature and of nature's 
God entitle them." 

John Adams: " No. I stood by the side of Jeffer- 
son when he brought in the Declaration; I was its 
champion on the floor of Congress. After our long 
estrangement, I come back to his side again." 

James Madison: " No. The object of the Federal 
Constitution is to secure the union of the thirteen 
primitive States, which we know to be practicable, and 



150 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

to add to them such other States as may arise in their 
own bosoms or in their neighborhood, which we can- 
not doubt will be practicable." 

Thomas Corwin: " l^o. I said in the days of the 
Mexican war: ' If I were a Mexican, as I am an Amer- 
ican, I would welcome you with bloody hands to hos- 
pitable graves '; and Ohio to-day honors and loves me 
for that utterance beyond all her other sons." 

Daniel Webster: " N^o. Under our Constitution 
there can be no dependencies. AVherever there is in 
the Christian and civilized world a nationality of char- 
acter, then a national government is the necessary and 
proper result. There is not a civilized and intelligent 
man on earth that enjoys satisfaction with his condi- 
tion if he does not live under the government of his 
own nation, his own country. A nation cannot be 
happy but under a government of its own choice. 
When I depart from these sentiments I depart from 
myself." 

William H. Seward : " No. The f ramers of the 
Constitution never contemplated colonies or provinces 
at all. They contemplated States only; nothing less 
than States — perfect States, equal States, sovereign 
States. There is reason, there is sound political wis- 
dom, in this provision of the Constitution — excluding 
colonies, which are always subject to oppression, and 
excluding provinces, which always tend to corrupt and 
enfeeble and ultimately to break down the parent 
State." 

John Marshall : " No. The power to declare war 
was not conferred upon Congress for the purpose of 
aggression or aggrandizement. A war declared by 
Congress can never be presumed to be waged for the 
purpose of conquest or the acquisition of territory, nor 
does the law declaring the war imply an authority to 
the President to enlarge the limits of the United States 
by subjugating the enemy's country." 



GEORGE F. HOAR 151 

John Quincy Adams : " ISTo. The territories I 
helped bring into the nation were to be dwelt in by 
free men and made into free States." 

Aaron Burr: " Yes. You are repeating my buc- 
caneering expedition down the Mississippi. I am to 
be vindicated at last! " 

Abraham Lincoln : " 'No. I said in Independence 
Hall at Philadelphia, just before I entered upon my 
great office, that I rested upon the truth Thomas Jef- 
ferson has just uttered, and that I was ready to be 
assassinated, if need be, in order to maintain it. And 
I was assassinated in order to maintain it." 

Charles Sumner: " No. I proclaimed it when I 
brought in Alaska. I sealed my devotion with my 
blood, also. It was my support and solace through 
those many long and weary hours when the red-hot 
iron pressed upon my spine, the very source and origin 
of agony, and I did not flinch. He knows our coun- 
try little, little also of that gTcat liberty of ours, who 
supposes that we could receive such a transfer. On 
each side there is impossibility. Territory may be 
conveyed, but not a people." 

William McKinley: " There has been a cloud be- 
fore my vision for a moment, but I see clearly now; 
I go back to what I said two years ago : ' Forcible an- 
nexation is criminal aggression; governments derive 
their just powers from the consent of the governed, 
not some of them, but of all of them.' I will stand 
with the Fathers of the Republic. I will stand with 
the founders of the Republican party. No." 

Mr. President, I know how imperfectly I have stat- 
ed this argument. I know how feeble is a single voice 
amid this din and tempest, this delirium of empire. 
It may be that the battle for this day is lost. But I 
have an assured faith in the future. I have an as- 
sured faith in justice and the love of liberty of the 
American people. The stars in their courses fight for 



152 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

freedom. The Ruler of the heavens is on that side. 
If the battle to-day go against it, I appeal to another 
day, not distant and sure to come. I appeal from the 
clapping of hands and the stamping of feet and the 
brawling and the shouting to the quiet chamber where 
the Fathers gathered in Philadelphia. I appeal from 
the spirit of trade to the spirit of liberty. I appeal 
from the Empire to the Republic. I appeal from the 
millionaire, and the boss, and the wire-puller, and the 
manager to the statesman of the older time, in whose 
eyes a guinea never glistened, who lived and died poor, 
and who left to his children and to his countrymen a 
good name far better than riches. I appeal from the 
Present, bloated with material prosperity, drunk with 
the lust of empire, to another and a better age. I ap- 
peal from the Present to the Future and to the Past. 



CLARK HOWELL 

[Extracts from a speech delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, 
November 19, 1898. J 



OUR REUNITED COUNTRY 

In the mountains of my State, in a county remote 
from the quickening touch of commerce and railroads 
and telegraph — so far removed that the sincerity of its 
rugged people flows unpolluted from the spring of 
nature — two vine-covered mounds, nestled in the sol- 
emn silence of a country church-yard, suggest the text 
of my response to the sentiment to which 1 am to speak 
to-night. A serious text for an occasion like this, and 
yet of it there is life and peace and hope and pros- 
perity, for in the solemn sacrifice of the voiceless grave 
can the chiefest lesson of the Republic be learned and 
the destiny of its real mission be unfolded. So bear 
with me while I lead you to the rust-stained slab, which 
for a third of a century — since Chickamauga — has 
been kissed by the sun as it peeped over the Blue Ridge, 
melting the tears with which the moiu-ning night had 
bedewed the inscription: 

Here lies a Confederate soldier. 
He died for his country. 

The September day which brought the body of this 
mountain hero to that home among the hills which had 
smiled upon his infancy, been gladdened by his youth, 

153 



154 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

and strengthened by Ms manhood, was an ever-mem- 
orable one with the sorrowing concourse of friends 
and neighbors who followed his shot-riddled body to 
the grave. And of that number no man gainsaid the 
honor of his death, lacked full loyalty to the flag for 
which he fought, or doubted the justice of the cause 
for which he gave his life. 

Thirty-five years have passed; another war has 
called its roll of martyrs; again the old bell tolls from 
the crude, latticed tower of the settlement church ; an- 
other great pouring of sympathetic humanity, and this 
time the body of a son, wrapped in the Stars and 
Stripes, is lowered to its everlasting rest beside that of 
the father who sleeps in the Stars and Bars. There 
were those there who stood by the grave of the Con- 
federate hero years before, and the children of those 
were there, and of those present no one gainsaid the 
honor of the death of this hero of El Caney, and none 
were there but loved, as patriots alone can love, the 
glorious flag that enshrines the people of a common 
country as it enshrouds the form that will sleep for- 
ever in its blessed folds. And on this tomb will be 
written: 

Here lies the son of a Confederate soldier. 
He died for his country. 

And so it is that, between the making of these two 
graves, human hands and human hearts have reached 
a solution of the vexed problem that has bafiled human 
will and human thought for three decades. Sturdy 
sons of the South have said to their brothers of the 
North that the people of the South had long since ac- 
cepted the arbitrament of the sword to which they had 
appealed. The sentiment of the great majority of the 
people of the South was rightly spoken in the message 
of the immortal Hill, and in the burning eloquence of 



CLARK HOWELL 155 

Henry Grady, the record of whose blessed work for 
the restoration of peace between the sections becomes a 
national heritage, and whose names are stamped in en- 
during impress upon the affection of the people of the 
Republic. And yet there were still those among us 
who believed your course was polite but insincere, and 
those among you who assumed that our professed atti- 
tude was sentimental and unreal. 

Bitterness had departed and sectional hate was no 
more, but there were those who feared, even if they 
did not believe, that between the great sections of our 
greater Government there was not the perfect faith and 
trust and love that both professed; that there was want 
of the faith that made the American revolution a possi- 
bility ; that there was want of the trust that crystallized 
our States into the original Union; that there was lack 
of the love that bound in unassailable strength the 
united sisterhood of States that withstood the shock of 
civil war. It is true this doubt existed to a greater 
degree abroad than at home. But to-day the mist of 
uncertainty has been swept away by the sunlight of 
events, and there, where doubt obscured before, stands 
in bold relief, commanding the admiration of the whole 
world, the most glorious type of united strength and 
sentiment and loyalty known to the history of nations. 



n. 

'^A COMMON FOE 

ITations may be made by the joining of hands, but 
the measure of their real strength and vitality, like that 
of the human body, is in the heart. Show me the 
country whose people are not at heart in sympathy 
with its institutions, and the fervor of whose patriotism 
is not bespoken in its flag, and I will show you a ship 



156 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

of state which is sailing in shallow waters toward un- 
seen eddies of uncertainty, if not to the open rocks of 
dismemberment. 

From whence was the proof to come, to ourselves as 
well as the world, that we were being moved once again 
by a common impulse and by the same heart that in- 
spired and gave strength to the hands that smote the 
British in the days of the Revolution, and again at New 
Orleans; that made our ships the masters of the seas; 
that placed our flag on Chapultepec, and widened our 
domain from ocean to ocean? How was the world to 
know that the burning fires of patriotism, so essential 
to national glory and achievement, had not been 
quenched by the blood spilled by the heroes of both 
sides of the most desperate struggle known in the his- 
tory of civil wars? How was the doubt that stood, all 
un^villing, between outstretched hands and sympa- 
thetic hearts, to be, in fact, dispelled? 

If from out the caldron of conflict there arose this 
doubt, only from the crucible of war could come the 
answer. And thank God, that answer has been made 
in the record of the war, the peaceful termination of 
which we celebrate to-night. Read it in every page 
of its history; read it in the obliteration of party and 
sectional lines, in the congTessional action which called 
the nation to arms in the defence of prostrate liberty 
and for the extension of the sphere of human freedom ; 
read it in the conduct of the distinguished Federal 
soldier who, as the Chief Executive of this great Re- 
public, honors this occasion by his presence to-night, 
and whose appointments in the flrst commissions issued 
after war had been declared made manifest the sin- 
cerity of his oft-repeated utterances of complete sec- 
tional reconciliation and the elimination of sectional 
lines in the affairs of the Government. 

Differing with him, as I do, on party issues, utterly 
at variance with the views of his party on economic 



CLARK HOWELL 157 

problems, I sanction with all my heart the obligation 
that rests on every patriotic citizen to make party 
second to country, and in the measure that he has been 
actuated by this broad and patriotic policy he will re- 
ceive the plaudits of the whole people: " Well done, 
good and faithful servant." 

Portentous, indeed, have been the developments of 
the past six months; the national domain has been ex- 
tended far into the Caribbean Sea on the south, and to 
the west it is so near the main-land of Asia that we can 
hear the grating of the process which is grinding the 
ancient Celestial Empire into pulp for the machinery of 
civilization and of progress. 

In a very short while the last chapter of this war 
will have been written, except for the effect it will 
have on the future. Our flag now floats over Porto 
Rico, a part of Cuba, and Manila. It must soon be- 
speak our sovereignty over the Island of Luzon, or 
possibly over the whole Philippine group. It will ere 
long from the staif on Havana's Morro cast its shadow 
on the sunken and twisted frame of the Maine — a grim 
reminder of the vengeance that awaits any nation that 
lays unholy hands on an American citizen or violates 
any sacred American right. 



III. 

'AN ARMY OF INVINCIBLES 

This war has drawn from an admiring world un- 
stinted applause for the invincible army, that under 
tropic suns, despite privations and disease, untrained 
but undismayed, has swept out of their o^vn trenches 
and routed from their own battlements like chaff be- 
fore the wind, the trained forces of a formidable power. 
It has bodily stripped the past of lustre and defiantly 



158 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

challenged the possibilities of the future in the accom- 
plishment of a matchless navy, whose deeds have 
struck the universe with consternation and with won- 
der. 

But speaking as a Southerner and an American, I 
saj that this has been as naught compared to the great- 
est good this war has accomplished. Drawing alike 
from all sections of the Union for her heroes and her 
martyrs, depending alike upon North, South, East, and 
West for her glorious victories, and weeping with 
sympathy with the widows and the stricken mothers 
wherever they may be, America, incarnated spirit of 
liberty, stands again to-day the holy emblem of a 
household in which the children abide in unity, equal- 
ity, love, and peace. The iron sledge of war that rent 
asunder the links of loyalty and love has welded them 
together again. Ears that were deaf to loving appeals 
for the burial of sectional strife have listened and be- 
lieved when the muster-guns have spoken. Hearts that 
were cold to calls for trust and sympathy have awak- 
ened to loving confidence in the baptism of their blood. 

Drawing inspiration from the flag of our country, 
the South has shared not only the dangers, but the 
glories of the war. In the death of brave young Bag- 
ley at Cardenas, North Carolina furnished the first 
blood in the tragedy. It was Victor Blue, of South 
Carolina, who, like the Swamp Fox of tlie Revolution, 
crossed the fiery path of the enemy at his pleasure and 
brought the first official tidings of the situation as it 
existed in Cuba. It was Brumby, a Georgia boy, the 
flag-lieutenant of Dewey, who first raised the Stars and 
Stripes over Manila. It was Alabama that furnished 
Hobson — glorious Hobson — who accomplished two 
things the Spanish navy has never yet done — sunk an 
American ship and made a Spanish man-of-war 
securely float. 

The South answered the call to arms with its heart. 



CLARK HOWELL 159 

and its heart goes out with that of the North in re- 
joicing at the result. The demonstration lacking to 
give tlie touch of life to the picture has been made. 
The open sesame that was needed to give insight into 
the true and loyal hearts both North and South has 
been spoken. Divided by war, we are united as never 
before by the same agency, and the Union is of hearts 
as well as hands. The doubter may scoff and the pessi- 
mist may croak, but even they must take hope at the 
picture presented in the simple and touching incident 
of eight Grand Army veterans, with their silvery heads 
bowed in sympathy, escorting the lifeless body of the 
Daughter of the Confederacy from Narragansett to its 
last, long rest at Richmond. 

When that great and generous soldier, U. S. Grant, 
gave back to Lee, crushed but ever glorious, the sword 
he had surrendered at Appomattox, that magnanimous 
deed said to the people of the South, " You are our 
brothers." But when the present ruler of our grand 
Republic, on awakening to the condition of war that 
confronted him, with his first commission placed the 
leader's sword in the hands of those gallant Confed- 
erate commanders, Joe Wheeler and Fitzhugh Lee, he 
wrote between the lines in living letters of everlasting 
light the words, " There is but one people of this 
Union, one flag alone for all." The South will feel that 
her sons have been well given, that her blood has been 
well spilled, if that sentiment is to be, indeed, the true 
inspiration of our nation's future. God grant it may 
be, as I believe it will. 



160 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 



[Extracts from a speech delivered at Buffalo, N, Y., before the 
Independent Club, December 21, 1899.] 

I. 

NO NEED OF PESSIMISM 

Since the organization of tlie thirteen original States 
each generation has produced some misguided citizens 
who, bhnd to the benefits offered bj extension of na- 
tional domain, sought in vain to thwart the march of 
commercial progress and check the current of a nation's 
destiny. Even prior to the birth of our Republic the 
great Frederick characterized as absurd the idea of 
maintaining an independent form of government cov- 
ering so vast a domain as that embraced between Maine 
and Georgia. 

Every extension of our border-line was met by sim- 
ilar argument, and when the Oregon country was 
under discussion in the '-iOs a Senator, with becom- 
ing seriousness, declared that no such remote land 
could ever be incorporated and held as an integi'al part 
of the United States; that it would require ten months 
out of every twelve for its representatives in Congress 
to go to and from the national capital, and that the 
contemplated annexation would prove a top-heavy con- 
struction which would weaken and crush the tender 
foundation of the national fabric. 

But one by one new States were moulded from new 
territory, and the Republic, built on the hearts of the 
people, strengthened in proportion to its growth. 
When the last link was riveted in the chain of States 
binding the Atlantic and the Pacific, the once-strug- 
gling Republic, fresh in the vigor of its youth, and 
brave in the strength of all its members, stood before 



CLARK HOWELL 161 

the nations of the earth a model government, founded 
on the rights of all its people, secure in the bond of 
their loyalty, and permanent in the promise of their 
posterity. 

Whatever doubt may have existed as to our right to 
raise the flag of our country over Manila must have 
been dispelled when, by formal ratification of the peace 
treaty, every island of the Philippine Archipelago was 
formally ceded and transferred by vanquished Spain 
to the victorious United States. The Philippines then 
became ours — ours beyond a doubt; ours beyond the 
possibility of misconstruction or misunderstanding; 
ours to reorganize and to establish thereon a govern- 
ment which would comport with the dignity of our na- 
tional prestige and conform to the requirements of our 
national demand. They became ours as Alaska be- 
came when purchased from Russia, as the Louisiana 
territory when secured from France, or the Republic of 
Texas when moulded into our national crown. 

The ratification of the peace treaty with Spain was 
a non-partisan declaration, and the act could not have 
been consummated without liberal support from Sena- 
tors of both parties to overcome the combined opposi- 
tion of the Senators from each, and whether that act 
is to be approved on its merits or not, it has long since 
become a record, and with it the Philippine Islands be- 
came, not a new "possession," but an actual part of our 
national domain, to be disposed of as we would dispose 
of Alaska, or forsooth, Kew Mexico or Arizona. 

Having obtained the Philippines, therefore, the 
question of control or government is the only relevant 
issue, dismissing from consideration, of course, the 
question of absolute abandonment, for frankly it does 
not seem to me that the numerical strength of the advo- 
cates of this peculiar policy is sufficient to justify seri- 
ous discussion concerning their claim. 

Those who regard the islands as an undesirable and 



162 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

a burdensome asset should be accorded full sincerity of 
motive and honesty of purpose in the expression of 
their opinion; but in the present state of affairs they 
should join none the less heartily in the patriotic effort 
of those who hold a contrary view to sustain the Gov- 
ernment in its declared policy of removing the fire- 
brand from the hand of the revolutionist, before treat- 
ing with him concerning his future state. 

In the Philippines 65,000 American soldiers to-day 
are standing in the trenches against the onslaught on 
our national authority. It is needless now to recount 
the whys and wherefores of this attack. It should bo 
enough for any American citizen, whatever may be his 
political opinion, to know that our boys are being 
killed, our flag is being assailed and our authority is 
being defied. 

Expression has been made signifying a willingness 
— nay, more than that, a positive desire — on the part of 
a small but eminently respectable and particularly 
demonstrative few, which secirres its enlistment with- 
out regard to party, not only to applaud the reverses 
encountered by our troops, but to hail with delight a 
development which would drive them into the ocean. 

If I thought for a moment that such expression em- 
bodied anything like a popular sentiment I would feel 
concern for the honor of our country and the security 
of its Government. Firm, however, in the faith of om- 
fathers and impressed with the view that public senti- 
ment, when fully aroused, seldom goes wrong, I prefer 
to take such a manifestation as the morbid and aggra- 
vated sentiment of a hopeless and thoughtless element, 
which no more measures the patriotism of our masses 
than a grain of sand in the hour-glass measures eternity. 

FHere Mr. Ho-well eloquently pictured the departure for the 
Philippines of the Twenty-ninth Regiment of Volunteers, and told 
how an aged Southerner, whose only son was in the column, doffed 
his hat as the moTing band struck up " The Star-Spangled Banner."] 



CLARK HOWELL 163 

There was the connecting link between the hearth- 
stone and the Capitol! There was the citizen 
who, representing the only real, substantial ele- 
ment of the nation's reserve strength — " the citizen 
standing in the door-way of his home, contented on his 
threshold " — had answered his country's call — the 
man of whom Henry Grady so eloquently said, " He 
shall save the Kepublic when the drum-tap is futile and 
the barracks are exhausted." In him was duty typi- 
fied, and in him slumbered the germ of sacrifice. 

There was that in the reverential attitude that said, 
even though the libation of his heart's blood should be 
required in far-off lands, his life would be laid down 
as lightly as his hat was lifted to his country's call. 
Denied iDy age the privilege of sharing the hardships 
and the dangers of war, no rule could regulate his pa- 
triotic ardor, no limitation could restrain the instinct 
of his homage. 

The patriot, hat in hand, speaks a faith that stayed 
the soul of the pilgrim fathers when they set foot on 
Plymouth Eock ; an abiding faith that filled the hearts 
of the continental soldiers who carved independence 
out of bondage; a faith that failed not when the fire- 
brand of civil war blazed fiercely for four years and 
then went out; a triumphant faith that guided our 
ships to Santiago and Manila Bay and sustained our 
soldiery when they wrested the grasp of Spanish 
tyranny from the Pearl of the Antilles ; an ever-living 
faith that will burn in the breasts of our statesmen 
and our soldiers until no hostile hand is raised to men- 
ace our flag as long as it floats in the Philippines. 



164 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

n. 

MISSION OF THE UNITED STATES 

Picture in your imagination the effect of the im- 
■mediate withdrawal of the strong arm of the Ameri- 
can people from the Philippines, and the establishment, 
out of existing conditions, of a government which 
would have none other than the tribal responsibility on 
which it would rest! Where would government end 
and anarchy begin? How long would it be before tribal 
strife and selfish faction would burst into the fierce 
fury of riot and lay violent hands upon the foundation 
of civilization and progress which has been firmly 
planted on the islands, and which, under the guiding 
hand of American direction, will lead their people into 
the broad path of peace and prosperity? 

Our mission, after putting down the pending revolu- 
tion, is to educate; and then, when their people are 
fitted for the establishment of a government of their 
own, to protect them in its maintenance until they can 
protect themselves. But until then let us pursue the 
even tenor of our way, working out, as best we can, 
the problem of destiny, putting the rest of the world on 
notice, as it watches mth eager eyes for an opportunity 
to profit by our possible misstep, that the performance 
of a duty which Providence has placed in our hands 
will not be shirked. Let our watchword be, " Hands 
off! " to the hungry monarchies of Europe, and, 
" Hands off! " ourselves only when we shall have es- 
tablished a government which will be a tribute to the 
glory of our institutions and a triumph of the honesty 
and sincerity of our purj^ose. 

Much is being said of the dangers of imperialism. If 
that term implies the creation of a vast standing army 



CLARK HOWELL 165 

which shall be intei-posed between the people and their 
rights as guaranteed by the Constitution, I would say 
that we want none of it here. If it means a central- 
ized government with one-man power, with the States 
shorn of their guaranteed authority in the control of 
their domestic affairs, and with a Congress secondary 
to a central power clothed with autocratic authority, 
I would say that the day has come when the people may 
well feel alarm for their security ; if it means that we 
are to exchange an ideal system of government, built 
upon the citizen as the unit and the hearth-stone as its 
most blessed sanctuary, for an experiment in the tur- 
bulent and oppressive methods of other countries whose 
people are groaning under the merciless wheels of the 
tax- Juggernaut, I would pray that God might divert 
the impending calamity. Well might we beware of 
such a condition. 

But I have faith in my country. Its green fields and 
fertile valleys sing the same sweet song of liberty that 
fell upon the ears of the continental patriots and in- 
spired their response to the quickstep of their coun- 
try's call. The rainbow of hope which God hung over 
their heads and anchored in the heavens, that it may 
be a perpetual inspiration, shines as brightly for us as 
it did for them. The compact of the States made by 
them has been guaranteed by succeeding generations, 
and generations yet unborn will take it to their hearts 
and defend it with their lives. 

Impressed with the security of our free institutions, 
therefore, the voice of the patriot to-day will sound like 
a clarion-note above the din of contention, for the main- 
tenance of the country's honor and the defence of its 
flag. Without a fixed and permanent increase of our 
standing army to unnecessary bounds, let us give all 
the men and the money required to put down armed 
resistance to its supremacy from any quarter where 
the flag has a right to speak the authority of American 



166 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

manhood. This is not, and in the nature of things it 
cannot be imperialism. It does not mean a centralized 
government, it does not mean a disregarded Congress, 
it does not mean one-man power, it does not mean a 
resort to European methods as contrary to our own — 
it is patriotism — it is the voice of the man with his 
hat in his hand. 



JOHN IRELAND 

[Extracts from a speech delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, 
October 18, 1898.] 

I. 

JUST WAR IS HOLY 

While we await that blessed day when embodied 
justice shall sit in judgment between peopks, as be- 
tween individuals, from time to time conditions more 
repellent than war may confront a nation, and to re- 
move such conditions the solemn dictates of reason 
and of religion impose war as righteous and obligatory. 
Let the life of a nation or the integrity of its territory 
be menaced; let the honor of a nation be assailed; 
let a grievous crime against humanity be perpetrated 
within reach of a nation's flag or a nation's arm, re- 
iterated appeals of argument and diplomacy failing, 
what else remains to a nation which is not so base as 
to court death or dishonor, but to challenge the fort- 
unes of war and give battle while strength remains 
in defence of " its altars and its hearth-stones? " AYar, 
indeed, is dreadful, but let it come ; the sky may fall, 
but let justice be done. War is no longer a repudia- 
tion of peace, but the means to peace — to the sole peace 
a self-respecting people may enjoy, peace with honor. 

A just and necessary war is holy. The men who at j 
country's call engage in such a war are the country s 
heroes, to whom must be given unstinted gratitude 
and unstinted praise. The sword in their hands is 

167 



168 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

the emblem of self-sacrifice and of valor; the flag 
which leads them betokens their country, and bids them 
pom- out in obhition to pnrcst patriotism the life-blood 
of their hearts; the shroud whicli spreads over the 
dead of the battle-field is the mantle of fame and of 
glory. Happy the nation which has the courage of a 
just war no less tlum that of a just peace, whose sons 
are able and willing to serve her with honor alike in 
war and in peace ! Happy the nation whose jubilee of 
peace, when war has ceased, is also a jubilee of victory. 

Six months ago the Congress of the United States 
declared that in the name of humanity war should be 
waged in order to give to the Island of Cuba a stable 
and independent government. Magnificent patriotism 
of America ! At once the people of the United States 
arose in their might. They argued not, they hesitated 
not; America had spoken; theirs was not to judge, 
but to obey. In a moment the money of America, the 
lives of America were at the disposal of the chief mag- 
istrate of the nation, whose sole embarrassment was 
the too generous response to his appeal for means to 
bring victory to the nation's flag. 

America had spoken; partisan politics, sectional dis- 
putes instantly were stilled beneath the majesty of her 
voice. Oft it had been whispered that we had a Xorth 
and a South. When America spoke we knew we were 
but one people, that all were Americans. It had been 
whispered that social and economic lines were hope- 
lessly dividing the American people, and that patriot- 
ism was retreating before the gTowth of class-interests 
and class-prejudices. But when America spoke there 
was no one in the land who was not an American. The 
laborer dropped his hammer, the farmer turned from 
his plough, the merchant forgot his counting-room, 
the millionaire closed the door of his mansion, and side 
by side, equal in their love of country and their resolve 
to serve her, they marched to danger and to death. 



JOnN IRELAND 169 

America can never doubt the united loyalty of her 
whole population nor the power which sucii united 
loyalty puts into her hand. 

And what may I not say in eulogy of the sentiment 
of humanity, which in union with their patriotism 
swayed the hearts of the American people and in their 
vision invested the war with the halo of highest and 
most sacred duty to fellow-men? I speak of the great 
multitude whom we name the American people. They 
had been told of dire suffering by a neighboring peo- 
ple struggling for peace and liberty; they believed 
that only through war could they acquit themselves of 
the sacred duty of rescuing that people from their suf- 
ferings. I state a broad, undeniable fact. The dom- 
inating, impelling motive of the war, in the depths of 
the national heart of America, was the sentiment of 
humanity. The people of America offered their lives 
through no sordid ambition of pecuniary gain, of con- 
quest of territory, of national aggrandizement. Theirs 
was the high-bom ambition to succor fellow-man. 

What strength and power America was found to 
possess! When war was declared, so small was her 
army, so small her navy, that the thought of war com- 
ing upon the country affrighted for the moment her 
own citizens, and excited the derisive smiles of foreign- 
ers. Of her latent resources no doubt was entertained; 
but how much time was needed to utilize them, and 
meanwhile, how much humiliation was possible! The 
President waved his wand; instantly armies and na\'ie3 
were created as by magic. Within a few weeks a 
quarter of a million men were formed into regiments 
and army corps; vessels of war and transport-ships 
covered the seas; from one side of the globe to the 
other battles were fought, and victories were won. I 
know not of familiar feats in history. 

Tbe war is ended. It would ill become me to say 
what details shall enter into the treaty of peace which 



170 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

America is concluding with her vanquished foe. I 
stand in the presence of the chief magistrate of the Re- 
public. To him it belongs by right of official position 
and of personal wisdom to prescribe those details. The 
country has learned from the acts of his administra- 
tion that to his patriotism, his courage, his justice, his 
prudence, she may well confide her safety, her honor, 
her destiny, her peace. AVhen to the treaty with 
Spain is appended the name of William McKinley, 
America wall be pleased, and the world will confess 
that, valorous in war, America is generous and high- 
minded in peace. 



n. 

AMERICA A WORLD POWER 

"What I may speak of on this occasion is results of 
the war manifest even at this hour to America and to 
the world, transcending and independent of all treaties 
of peace, possessing for America and for the world a 
meaning far mightier than accumulation of material 
wealth, or commercial concessions, or territorial ex- 
tension. 

To do great things, to meet fitly great responsibili- 
ties, a nation, like a person, must be conscious of its 
dignity and its power. The consciousness of what she 
is and what she may be has come to America. She 
knows that she is a great nation. The elements of great- 
ness were not imparted to her by the war, but they 
were revealed to her by the war, and their vitality and 
significance were increased through the war. To take 
its proper place among the other nations of the earth 
a nation must be known, as she is, to those nations. 
The world, to-day as never before, knows and confesses 
the greatness and the power of America. The world 



JOHN lEELAND 171 

to-daj admires and respects America. The young giant 
of the West, heretofore neglected and almost despised 
in his remoteness and isolation, is now moving as be- 
comes his stature. The world sees what he is and 
pictures what he will be. All this does not happen by 
chance or accident. An all-ruling Providence directs 
the movements of humanity. What we witness is a 
momentous dispensation from the Master of Men. 

To-day we proclaim a new order of things. America 
is too great to be isolated from the world around her 
and beyond her. She is a world-power, to whom no 
world-interest is alien, whose voice reaches afar, whose 
spirit travels across seas and mountain ranges to most 
distant continents and islands ; and with America goes 
far and wide what America in her grandest ideal rep- 
resents — democracy and liberty, a government of the 
people, by the people, for the people. This is Ameri- 
canism, more than American territory, or American 
shipping, or American soldiery. Where this grandest 
ideal of American life is not held supreme, America 
has not reached; where this ideal is supreme, America 
reigns. The vital significance of America's triumphs 
is not understood unless by those triumphs is under- 
stood the triumph of democracy and of liberty. 

That at times wonderful things come through war 
we must admit, but that they come through war, and 
not through methods of peaceful justice, we must ever 
regret. When they do come through war their beauty 
and grandeur are dimmed by the memory of the suf- 
ferings and carnage which were their price. We say 
in defence of war that its purpose is justice, but is it 
worthy of Christian civilization that there is no other 
way to justice than war, that nations are forced to 
stoop to the methods of the animal and the savage? 
Time was w^hen individuals gave battle to one another 
in the name of justice; it was the time of social bar- 
barism. Tribunals have since taken to themselves the 



172 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

administration of justice, and how much better it is for 
the happiness and progress of mankind! 

It is force or chance that decides the issue of the 
battle. Justice herself is not heard. The decision of 
justice is what it was before the battle, the judgment 
of one party. Must we not hope that, with the widen- 
ing influence of reason and of religion among men, 
the day is approaching when justice shall be enthroned 
upon a great international tribunal, before which na- 
tions shall bow, demanding from it judgment and 
peace? 

It was America's great soldier who said, " Though 
I have been trained as a soldier and have participated 
in many battles, there never was a time when, in my 
opinion, some way could not have been found of pre- 
venting the drawing of the sword. I look forward to 
an epoch when a court, recognized by all nations, will 
settle international differences, instead of keeping large 
standing armies, as they do in Europe." Shall we not 
allow the words of General Grant to go forth as the 
message of America? 

It was Wellington who said, " Take my w^ord for 
it, if you had seen but one day of war you would pray 
to Almighty God that you might never see such a thing 
again." It was Napoleon who said, " The sight of a 
battle-field after the fight is enough to inspire princes 
with a love of peace and a horror of war." War, be 
thou gone from my soul's sight! I thank the good God 
that thy ghastly spectre stands no longer upon tlje 
thresholds of the homes of my fellow-countrymen in 
America or of my fellow-men in distant Andalusia. 
I ask heaven : When shall humanity rise to such heights 
of reason and of religion that war shall be impossible, 
and stories of battle-fields but the saddening echoes of 
primitive ages of the race ? 

America, the eyes of the world are upon thee. Thou 
livest for the world. The new era is shedding its 



JOHN IRELAND 173 

light upon thee, and through thee upon the world. 
Thy gTeatness and thy power daze me; thy responsi- 
bilities to God and to humanity daze me — I would say 
affright me. America, thou failing, democracy and 
liberty fail throughout the world. And now, 
America, the country of our pride, of our love, of our 
hope, we remit thee for to-day and for to-morrow 
into the hands of the Almighty God under whose 
protecting aegis thou canst not fail, whose command- 
ments are the supreme rule of trath and of righteous- 
ness. 



CHARLES E. JEFFERSON 

[Extracts from a sermon preached in the Broadway Tabernacle, 
New York City, June 19, 1898.] 

I. 

TEMPTATION FROM THE MOUNTAIN 
TOP 

Nations, like men, go up into exceeding higli moun- 
tains and behold the kingdoms of the world in a mo- 
ment of time. Into such a mountain in these recent 
days our Republic has been carried. It is with us as 
it was with the Son of God. He was swept by the Holy 
Spirit onward to be tempted of the devil. He was 
entering a new epoch in His life. A great work lay 
just before Him. His imagination was stirred to un- 
wonted activity, and all the currents of His life flowed 
with a new momentum. In this highly wrought con- 
dition of nerve and spirit, new yearnings, strange am- 
bitions, lofty dreams seized and held Him. Vast pos- 
sibilities opened before Him. Conflicting suggestions 
thronged upon His soul. The world lay at His feet. 
He felt himself to be its rightful lord. How to enter 
into His dominion was the problem which crushed Him 
almost to the earth. 

We as a nation are passing through a crucial ex- 
perience. "We are at war. We feel we were driven into 
the war by the Spirit of the Lord. But the war fur- 
nishes an arena in which we must suffer temptation of 
the devil. No high experience is ever possible without 

174 



CHARLES E. JEFFERSON 175 

attendant dangers. We are to-day stimulated to un- 
natural life. All our senses are abnormally acute. "We 
see and dream as we never did in the quiet days of 
peace. Visions flit before us. New ambitions seize us. 
New responsibilities and duties awe and alarm us. 
Possibilities vague and alluring charm us into a de- 
licious intoxication. Temptations robed in garments 
of light stalk before us. Conceptions and enterprises 
of which we have heretofore been unconscious stir 
within us and give us a strange unrest. We are pass- 
ing through a national crisis. The crisis is crowded 
with perils, subtle and deadly. We feel we are on the 
verge of a new era. A great work lies just ahead of us. 
A new century at the threshold stirs the imagination 
and fills us with mighty dreams. Now is the time 
to be careful. Now is the time to think deeply, soberly, 
reverently, of our duties, and in the fear of God to ask 
ourselves by what road will our nation reach the place 
provided for it in the councils of the Almighty, by 
what policy will it best advance the interests of the 
kingdom of our King? 

To tempt Jesus of Nazareth it was necessary to show 
Him all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of 
them. To tempt many Americans it is necessary to 
show them only a few islands of the sea. The victory 
in the harbor of Manila has roused in thousands the 
old de\al of love of conquest, and already ambitious 
editors are counting up with glee the islands which 
will form the string of spoils with which we shall come 
off laden from the war. Our modern editor takes up 
islands as a very little thing. 

Nor is this lust of empire confined to the impetuous 
statesmen who furnish copy for our sensational papers.. 
It is pervading all classes of our people. Reputable 
editors are writing editorials on " Imperial America," 
and men high up in church and state, to whom the 
people naturally look for counsel and guidance, are 



176 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

speaking in patronizing tones of Washington's out- 
grown ideas, and are asserting that the time is ripe for 
territorial expansion and the adoption of a policy im- 
pressively imperial. The spirit of conquest is in the 
air. The pride of power is on us. The avarice for 
domain, finely cloaked under religious and patriotic 
phrases, appeals to us with all the subtlety and per- 
suasiveness of a devil. Now is the time for every man 
to think. We must not lose our heads simply because 
we are on a mountain-top. We must not be swayed 
by the clamor and sophistry of an ignorant and irre- 
sponsible press. We must not be imposed on by phrases 
such as " Manifold destiny," " Providential openings," 
" God's manifest decrees." 

Men have always used such phrases to induce the 
world to move in the direction in which they wished 
it to go. We will give slight weight to the puerile argu- 
ment that, because we extended our domain across a 
continent, we should, therefore, extend it around the 
world. We will not believe that it is necessary for 
us to hold a foot of land whose possession wall jeopar- 
dize or embarrass the great experiment of popular gov- 
ernment which we are working out for the nations and 
ages. What is our responsibility to any island com- 
pared with our responsibility to the vast future? We 
will ask, not what can we do to impress Europe, but 
what is our duty? 

Men are exulting everywhere that we have become 
at last a great world-power. We amounted to nothing 
until the victory in the harbor of Manila! 



"Oh Judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, 
And men have lost their reason." 



He is a Rip Van Winkle of an American who had to 

be aroused from his sleep by a cannon-shot to learn 
that the Republic of the West is a gi-eat world-power. 



CHAKLES E. JEFFERSON 177 

America lias been a great world-power for years. How 
did she become such? By her army? No. By her 
navy? No. By dabbling in diplomacy? jSTo. By 
colonies and dependencies? No. By the cultivation 
of the ai-ts of peace. By attending to her own business. 
By building colleges and schools and churches. By 
developing free institutions. We started poor and 
without a friend. We were counted the offscouring of 
the world. We are to-day one of the richest of all 
nations. In thirty years of this century we created 
and accumulated forty-nine thousand millions of dol- 
lars, more than the entire wealth of Great Britain. We 
can to-day buy up the aggregate wealth of the United 
Kingdom and have twenty billion dollars left to make 
purchases elsewhere. We have not fooled away our 
time in drilling and marching. We have worked. 
We have not squandered our money on armies and 
navies. We have built it into schools. And to-day 
we are a power in the world. It is absurd to think that 
a nation cannot be a great world-power without an 
immense army. 

We will not be charmed out of our senses by that 
proud and fatal phrase, " Imperial America." Im- 
perial — away with it! I do not like the sound of it. 
It has in it the sound of a death-knell. It is a devil of 
a word which has lured many a nation to its ruin. Eun 
your eye along the tombstones of the nations which 
have been imperial — Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, Mace- 
don, Eome. Look into the faces of the great imperial- 
ists from Alexander the Great to Napoleon III! All 
of them with their " purples rent asunder, disinherited 
of thunder." Imperial America? Never! Let us 
make it Christian America. 



178 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

11. 

OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND 

Our greatest temptation to-day comes from England. 
She is at once our greatest inspiration, and also our 
most dangerous friend. The popular imagination al- 
ways paints its ideals in colors drawn from a concrete 
example held before the eyes. That is what misled the 
Hebrew people. They knew no kings but those of 
Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and Rome, and they could 
conceive of no other kind. They saw the Messiah 
always through the glory of Oriental courts. They 
crucified Jesus because He did not tally with the type 
of king the world had agreed to reckon great. The 
church of the fourth and fifth and sixth centuries was 
misled by the Roman Empire. The empire was the 
synonym of power, the ideal of majesty, the- con- 
summate flower of human genius. Rome was the Eter- 
nal City. And so Christian leaders shaped their ideals 
of the Christian Church from the mistress of the 
world. Dazzled by imperial glory, they could conceive 
of no city of God that did not reproduce the structure 
and features of the city of the Caesars. 

We are in danger of committing the same fatal 
blunder. England is to us the great nation of the 
earth. London is mightier than Rome ever was. Eng- 
land has dependencies — why should not we? Eng- 
land has an imperial policy — why should not we ? Eng- 
land has a mighty navy — why should not we? 
England has accomplished vast good by her battle- 
ships and army — why should we not follow her exam- 
ple? Easily deluded is the mind of man. A battle- 
ship is more attractive, even yet, to millions than the 
man who hangs on the Cross. But that man on the 
Cross sways the future ! He alone holds a sceptre that 



CHARLES E. JEFFERSON 179 

shall not be broken. After the towers of Westminster 
Abbey have crumbled and been mingled with the dust 
of its immortal dead, the Kingdom of Christ will still 
be young. Of the increase of His government there 
shall be no end. 

It is earnestly questioned whether England has not 
already reached the zenith of her greatness. As Cap- 
tain Mahan says, " She is gorged with land and her 
statesmen are weary of looking after it." She has de- 
pendencies, but, as Disraeli long ago asserted, they are 
a millstone around her neck. She has a mighty navy, 
but dearly does she pay for it. Upon her army and 
navy over one-third of her vast revenues are annually 
expended, while her paupers increase with the year?. 
She has naval power, but she is without a friend upon 
the planet. Nations fear her; they do not love her. 
She has taken possession of many lands, but her meth- 
ods have so imbittered the hearts of many of her sub- 
jects that they never can accept the Gospel at her hands. 
Saul of Tarsus was never preceded by bayonets or 
cannon. 

There is no nation on the earth whose example it is 
safe for us to follow. It is to the everlasting glory of 
our fathers that they turned their back on the ideals 
and traditions of Europe, and with an audacity grandly 
sublime, sought the principles of the ideal government 
in the dreams of hearts that had been cleansed by the 
spirit of Christ. All that we have done has been pos- 
sible only because they with magnificent courage re- 
fused to be hampered by the policies and precedents 
of the past, and struck boldly into an experiment that 
seemed to them to have the sanction and authority of 
God. We have gone our own way from the beginning. 
We should continue in it to the end. We must be true 
to our own traditions. We must remain a peculiar peo- 
ple. Many are disturbed because the courts of Europe 
do not think highly of us. What of it? Mr. Richard 



180 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Olney says, " We stand without a friend among the 
great powers of the world, and we impress them as a 
nation of sympathizers, and sermonizers, and swagger- 
ers." What of it? We have been misunderstood and 
maligned from the beginning. We can scarcely ex- 
pect supporters of monarchies and aristocracies and 
vast armies to appreciate and adore the nation which 
is doing more than any other power under heaven to 
undermine the foundations of all despotisms and over- 
throw the pretensions and tyrannies of all aristocracies. 

Let them sneer. Germans and Frenchmen sneer at 
the man who will not when challenged defend his honor 
in a duel. Let them sneer. Inhabitants of certain 
islands scoff at a man too fastidious to eat his neighbor's 
flesh. Let them scoff. Men sneered at Jesus all the 
way from Nazareth to Golgotha. They sneered at Him 
while He was dying. He let them sneer. The world 
on the other hand applauded liapoleon. Men called 
him " ISTapoleon the Great." But Napoleon the Great 
one day became Napoleon the helpless, and on the Isl- 
and of St. Helena, his prison home, he made this frank 
confession : " Alexander, Csesar, Charlemagne, and 
myself founded great empires; but upon what did the 
creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus 
alone founded His empire on love, and to this very 
day millions would die for Him." 

This is my ambition for America — that we may 
found our empire upon love; that we may spend our 
money on churches and schools, libraries and hospitals; 
that we may build ourselves four-square in righteous- 
ness, so that wherever an American citizen may go 
upon the earth he will be honored and loved, not be- 
cause of our battle-ships, but because he represents 
a nation which has nothing but justness and kindness 
for all races of men. 



WILFRED LAURIER 

[From a speech delivered in Chicago, October 9, 1899, at the laying 
of the corner stone of the new Federal Building.] 



UNWRITTEN ALLIANCE 

It is with some degree of satisfaction that I approach 
the toast to which I have been called to respond. Be- 
cause I feel that though the relations between Canada 
and the United States are good, though they are broth- 
erly, though they are satisfactory, they are not as good, 
as brotherly, as satisfactory as they ought to be. We 
are of the same stock. We spring from the same 
races on one side of the line as on the other. We speak 
the same language. We have the same literature, and 
for more than a thousand years we have had a common 
history. 

Let me recall to you the lines which, in the darkest 
days of the Civil War, the Puritan poet of America 
issued to England : 

"Oh, Englishmen ! Oh, Englishmen 1 
In hope and creed, 
In blood and tongue, are brothers, 
We all are heirs of Runnymede. " 

Brothers we are, in the language of your own poet. 
May I not say that while our relations are not always 
as brotherly as they should be, may I not ask, Mr. 
President, on the part of Canada and on the part of the 
United States, whether we are not sometimes too prone 

181 



182 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

to stand by the full conceptions of our rights, and to 
exact to the last pound of flesh? May 1 not ask if 
there have not been too often between us petty 
quarrels, which happily do not wound the heart of the 
nation? 

Sir, I am proud to say in the presence of the chief 
executive of the United States that it is the belief of 
the Canadian Government that we should make a su- 
preme effort to better our relations and make this Gov- 
ernment and the present government of Canada, with 
the assent of Great Britain, so to work together as to 
remove all causes of dissension between us. And 
whether the commission which sat first in the old City 
of Quebec and next in the City of Washington — 
but whether sitting in Quebec or in Washington, I am 
sorry to say the result has not been commensurate with 
our expectations. 

We met a stumbling-block in the question of the 
Alaskan frontier. Well, let me say, here and now, the 
commission could not settle that question and referred 
it to their particular governments, and they are now 
dealing ^vith it. May I be permitted to say, here and 
now, that we do not desire one inch of your land. 

But if I state, however, that we want to hold our 
land, will that be an American sentiment? However, 
though that would not be an American sentiment, 
though it would not be a British or Canadian sentiment, 
I am here to say, above all, my fellow-countrymen, that 
we want not to stand upon the extreme limits of our 
rights. We are ready to give and to take. We can 
afford to be just; we can afford to be generous, be- 
cause we are strong. 

But though we have many little bickerings, after 
all, when we go down to the bottom of our hearts we 
find that there is between us a true, genuine affection. 
There are no two nations to-day on the face of the 
globe so united as Great Britain and the United States. 



WILFRED LAURIER 183 

The Secretary of State told us some few months ago 
that there was no treaty of alliance between Great 
Britain and the United States of America. It is very 
true there is no treaty of alhance which the pen can 
write and which the pen can unmake, but there is be- 
tween Great Britain and the United States a unity 
of blood, and I appeal to recent history when I say 
that whenever one nation has to face an emergency — 
a greater emergency than usual — forthwith the sym- 
pathies of the other nation go to her sister. 

When last year you were suddenly engaged in war 
with Spain, though Spain was the weaker party and 
though it is natural that men should side with the 
weaker party, our sympathies went to you for no other 
reason than that of blood. And I am sure you will 
agree with me that, though our relations have not 
reached the degree of perfection to which I would 
aspire, from that day a new page has been turned in 
the history of our country. It was no unusual occur- 
rence, before the month of May, 1898, to read in the 
British press of American arrogance; neither was it 
an unusual occurrence to read in the American press 
of British brutality. Since the month of May, 1898, 
these expressions have disappeared from the vocabu- 
lary. You do not hear to-day of American arrogance ; 
neither do you hear of British brutality, but the only 
expressions which you find in the press of either coun- 
try now are words of mutual respect and mutual af- 
fection. 

n. 

UNION OF HEARTS 

Sir, an incident took place last summer which 
showed that there is between us a very deep and sin- 
cere affection. In the month of June I spoke on the 



184 PATKIOTIC ELOQUElSrCE 

floor of the House of Commons of Canada on the 
question of Alaska, and I enunciated the very obvious 
truism that international problems can be settled in 
one or two ways only, either by arbitration or by war. 
And although I proceeded to say immediately that war 
between Great Britain and the United States would be 
criminal and would not be thought of for a moment, 
still the very word " war " created quite an excitement 
in this country. For that causeless excitement, though 
I was indirectly the cause of it, I do not at this moment 
find any fault, because it convinced me to an absolute 
certainty that between your country and my country 
the relations have reached that degree of dignity and 
respect and affection that even the word " war " is 
never to be mentioned in a British assembly or in an 
American assembly. The word is not to be pro- 
nounced, not even to be predicated. It is not to be pro- 
nounced at all. The very idea is abhorrent to us. 

I repeat what I then stated, that war between Great 
Britain and the United States would be criminal — in 
my estimation and judgment, just as criminal as the 
Civil War, which desolated your country some thirty 
years ago. Whatever may have been the mistaken 
views of the civilized world at the time, the civilized 
world has come to the unanimous conclusion that the 
AYar of the Rebellion was a crime. The civilized world 
has come to the conclusion that it was a benefit to man- 
kind that this rebellion did not succeed and that the 
government of the people, by the people and for the 
people did not perish from the earth. 

Your coimtry was desolated for four long years by 
the awful scourge of civil war. If there is anything 
of the many things which are to be admired in this 
great country of yours, the one thing for my part which 
I most admire is the absolute success with which you 
have re-established the Union and erased all traces of 
the Civil War. Wliat is the reason? 



WILFRED LAURIER 185 

You had it in the war with Spain, when the men of 
the blue and the men of the gray, the men who had 
fought for the Confederacy, and the men that fought 
for the Union, at the call of their country, came back 
to fight the battles of their own country under a united 
flag. That was the reason. 

Senator Cullom, said a moment ago that he might 
believe me almost an American. I am a British sub- 
ject, but I may say that, as a lover of liberty, a believer 
in democratic institutions, I rejoiced as you did at the 
spectacle which was presented at Santiago, El Caney, 
and elsewhere during that war. 

Sirs, there was another civil war. There was a civil 
war in the last century. There was a civil war between 
England, then, and her colonies. The union which 
then existed between England and her colonies was sev- 
ered. If it was severed, American citizens, as you 
know it was, through no fault of your fathers, the 
fault was altogether the fault of the British Govern- 
ment of that day. If the British Government had 
treated the American colonies as the British Govern- 
ment for the last twenty or fifty years has treated its 
colonies; if Great Britain had given you then the 
same degree of liberty which it gives to Canada, if it 
had given you, as it has given us, legislative indepen- 
dence, the result would have been different; the course 
of victory, the course of history, would have been dif- 
ferent. 

But what has been done cannot be undone. You 
cannot expect that the union which was then severed 
shall ever be restored; but may we not hope that, if 
the union cannot be restored under the law, at least 
there can be a union of hearts? May we not hope that 
the banners of England and the banners of the United 
States shall never again meet in conflict, except those 
conflicts provided by the arts of peace, such as we see 
to-day in the contest between the " Shamrock " and the 



186 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

" Columbia " for the supremacy of naval architecture 
and naval prowess? May we not hope that if ever the 
banners of England and the banners of the United 
States are again to meet on the battle-field they shall 
meet entwined together in the defence of some holy 
cause, in the defence of holy justice, for the defence 
of the oppressed, for the enfranchisement of the down- 
trodden, and for the advancement of liberty, progress, 
and civilization? 



WILLIAM LINDSAY 

[Extracts from a speech delivered before the American Bar Asso- 
ciation at Buffalo, August 28, 1899]. 

I. 

LAW IS WITH DUTY 

The authority of the Government to prosecute the 
war against Spain, to destroy the Spanish fleets, to capt- 
ure the Spanish armies, and to hold and occupy Span- 
ish territory, is not open to question. The right to 
make peace inchides the right to fix the terms and con- 
ditions upon which peace shall be made; and those 
terms may lawfully include the cession of territory 
won by American valor. The war with Mexico, fifty 
years ago, and the treaty through which peace was 
then restored, are prototypes of the recent war with 
Spain and the treaty of peace with that country. A 
victorious conflict, followed by the cession of the vast 
region embraced by ISTew Mexico and Upper California, 
with the payment to Mexico of fifteen million dollars, 
and a victorious war followed by the cession of Porto 
Rico and the Philippine Archipelago and the Island 
of Guam, with the payment to Spain of twenty million 
dollars, complete the analogy. These treaty stipula- 
tions impose no obligations on the United States to 
organize the ceded territories into States preparatory 
to their admission into the Union. 

It is said to be inconsistent with the fundamental 
187 



188 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

idea of free institutions for this Government to retain 
territory under its imperial rule and deny the people 
the customary local institutions. But it is not con- 
trary to that idea to retain such territory, securing to 
the people all the customary local institutions they 
may prove themselves competent to administer, and all 
the civil rights that free institutions are intended to 
protect. If the erection of States out of the temtory 
of Louisiana was in the mind of Mr. Jefferson at all, 
it was not the controlling consideration with him, or 
with either of his commissioners when the treaty of 
cession was negotiated. The possession of Louisiana 
by Trance would have been an obstruction to the safety 
and prosperity of the United States. To prevent that 
obstruction, and not for the creation or admission of 
new" States into the Union, the purchase was made. 

The power to admit new States, except those erected 
within the original boundaries of the Union, was then 
an undecided and disputed proposition. It was denied 
by statesmen and lawyers of distinction and ability. 
When the territory of Louisiana applied for admission 
as a State, the application met with determined oppo- 
sition. It was insisted that the admission would im- 
pair the dignity and reduce the relative importance of 
the original States, and would be in derogation of 
their constitutional rights. In all past controversies, 
no one contended that the validity of the acquisition 
of foreign tenitory depended on the ultimate organi- 
zation of any portion of it into a State for admission 
into the Union. The admission of new States is es- 
sentially a discretionary power. ISTew" States may be 
admitted by Congress into the Union. The grant im- 
plies power, not duty. Congress has the " discretion 
to refuse as well as to admit." It may be doubted, 
whether the discretion to refuse can be taken away 
or abridged by treaty. 

To substitute the control of the United States for 



WILLIAM LINDSAY 189 

tlie control of Spain in the Philippines; to introduce 
American institutions in the room and stead of Spanish 
methods ; to replace absolute and unlimited power with 
the restraining principles of constitutional liberty, will 
not be to contravene this great fundamental principle. 
It will be the first step in securing to the inhabitants 
of those distant countries the right to life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness. It will be to the people of 
these islands the dawn of a morning which in God's 
providence will ripen into a day of deliverance from 
tyranny and oppression at the hands of either a foreign 
master or a home-bred despot. 

To secure the inalienable rights of man, governments 
are instituted, deriving their just powers from the con- 
sent of the governed. Whenever the form of govern- 
ment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right 
of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute a 
new government, laying its foundations on such prin- 
ciples and organizing its powers in such form as to 
them may seem most likely to effect their safety and 
happiness. American dominion in the Philippines 
will destroy none of the ends of government; will 
disregard no one of the inalienable rights of man; 
will sanctify no abuse or usurpation, but mil temiinate 
the despotism under which their people have lived for 
more than three hundred years. 

The United States did not ask the consent of the in- 
habitants of Louisiana, or Florida, or New Mexico, or 
Upper California, to the cessions made by Prance and 
Spain and the Republic of Mexico, nor was it under- 
stood when we assumed sovereign jurisdiction over 
those peoples, that we were violating the principle that 
governments derive their just powers from the consent 
of the governed. Orderly government faithfully ad- 
ministered in the interests of the governed superin- 
duces consent. The Filipinos have never been free. 
In submitting to the authority of the United States 



190 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

thej surrender no privilege or immunity. The Treaty 
of Paris makes no provision for the incorporation of 
the people of the Philippines into the Union, or for 
their enjoyment of the privileges, rights, or immunities 
of citizens of the United States. The native inhabi- 
tants of those countries are to have their civil rights 
and political status determined by Congress, and the 
power of Congress is unlimited so far as the treaty of 
cession is concerned, except that the inhabitants are to 
be secured in the free exercise of their religion. 

It does not follow because the civil rights and politi- 
cal status of the Philippine people are to be determined 
by Congress, that the power of Congress over them is 
omnipotent. Congress will exercise legislative power 
practically free from restraint by the treaty, but sub- 
ject to the restraints of constitutional institutions. I 
do not claim that the Government of the United States 
is specially adapted to a colonial policy, or that its meth- 
ods of administration qualify it, in any marked degree, 
to hold and govern dependencies in any portion of the 
world, proximate or remote. On the contrary, it is of 
doubtful expediency to hold colonies or dependencies 
at all, and such holding can only be justified by ne- 
cessity. "When, however, duty admits of no escape 
without the sacrifice of national honor or dignity, the 
necessity exists. 

If this be an imperial power, it is not the imperial- 
ism of the autocrat, but that which pertains to the em- 
pire of which Jefferson spoke, when he said, " I am 
persuaded no constitution was ever so well calculated 
for extensive empire and self-government " as that of 
the United States. It is open to abuse, as is every 
great power of government; but faith in the virtue, 
magnanimity, and justice of the American people, en- 
courages the belief that it will always be exerted to 
exemplify the fact that the imperialism of the Ameri- 
can Republic is its capacity and disposition to defend 



WILLIAM LINDSAY 191 

the weak against injustice and oppression wherever its 
flag may float, rather than an attribute of arbitrary and 
irresponsible power. 

II. 

INEXCUSABLE INSURRECTION 

In the prosecution of a just war against Spain the 
United States made the Philippines a point of attack. 
No organized or formidable insurrection was then in 
progress in those countries. Agiiinaldo was voluntarily 
absent. He did not return until after the destruction 
of the Spanish fleet and after the Americans had be- 
come practically masters of the local situation. The 
presence of American ships and soldiers protected him 
and his followers from Spanish attack. Advantage 
was taken of conditions the Filipinos had little or no 
hand in bringing about, for the organization of the 
insurrectionary army and for the establishing of the 
revolutionary government. When Aguinaldo and his 
chieftains determined to resist the transfer of the Phil- 
ippine allegiance from Spain to the United States, they 
elected to continue a war which the Spanish Govern- 
ment had solemnly renounced and abandoned. They 
tendered an issue which the United States could not 
refuse, and doing so, they assumed responsibility for 
all the evils that have come, or may hereafter come to 
the Philippine people from a contest, which on their 
part, is as inexcusable as it is manifestly hopeless. 

The United States could not submit to the sale by 
Spain of the Philippines. Their purchase by a neutral 
power would have been regarded by our Government 
as an unfriendly act, not to be tolerated. Spain could 
not have defeated the American invasion by the rec- 
ognition of the independence of the insurgents, and 
it was in disregard, if not in contempt of the rights of 



192 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

tlie United States for tlie insurgent chieftain, under 
the circumstances, to proclaim an independent govern- 
ment. 

Having overthrown the authority of Spain, against 
which the Filipinos, for countless generations, had 
vainly struggled, we sought to give them free institu- 
tions under a Government able to maintain, and pledged 
to uphold, peace, justice, and order. We offered not 
principalities, or powers, or largesses, or subsidies, to 
ambitious chieftains, but protection to the lives, lib- 
erty, and property of the people ; and it was indefensi- 
ble and wicked in those disappointed chieftains to turn 
their arms against us. There can be but one ending to 
the unfortunate contest. The sovereign authority of 
the United States will be established, and under and 
through their beneficent control, peace will take the 
place of war, order will supplant lawlessness, and jus- 
tice and mercy prevail, where force and fraud and 
cruelty once seemed to have their perpetual abiding 
place. 

We have extended our domain into and across the 
Pacific, but we have not changed the nature of our 
Government, or the character of our institutions. Ours 
is still a Union of American States and will so remain 
to the end. The bond of union by which the States 
are held together was ordained and established as the 
" Constitution for the United States of America." 
Our policy, our traditions, our interests, and our glory 
alike forbid the admission into the Union of any other 
than a North American State. 

It does not follow, however, that we are to shrink 
from the full and faithful discharge of the new duty 
which we find ourselves under to the civilized world, 
and more especially to the distant islands of the East- 
ern Seas. Tliat duty was not of our seeking. It 
came as the culmination of events which human 
agencies could not control or direct. We would gladly 



WILLIAM LINDSAY 193 

escape it if escape were possible, but recognizing that 
there is no honorable avenue of retreat, we take it up, 
appreciating all its difficulties and responsibilities, with 
the fixed purpose of discharging it to the uttermost. 
We do this with no desire for indefinite expansion; 
with no design of establishing a general colonial policy ; 
but with the earnest hope that after our national au- 
thority shall have been established, and established it 
will be, the people of the Philippines may show them- 
selves capable of upbuilding and maintaining a local 
government of their own. If failure attends our efforts, 
it will be but another instance of defeated hopes and 
disappointed expectations. 

But if by holding up the hands of those who aspire 
to orderly and stable institutions, we shall open the way 
to a home government, under which individual rights 
will be respected, domestic tranquillity insured, and 
life, liberty, and property protected, by the fixed and 
regular administration of just and equal laws, we shall 
give another and striking evidence of man's capacity 
for self-government, and, over and above all considera- 
tions of pecuniary or commercial advantages, however 
great they may be, we shall be compensated for the 
blood and treasure we have expended and may expend, 
by the consciousness of having secured to the inalien- 
able rights of man a wider field, and to free institutions 
the opportunity to extend their blessings to the human 
family in a quarter of the world in which despotism 
has had its undisputed reign from the earliest period 
of recorded time. 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 
THE TREATY OF PEACE 

[From a speech made in the Senate of the United States, January 
24, 1899]. 

I HAVE heard no opposition expressed to any part of 
tlie treaty except such portion of it as relates to the 
Philippines. In onr war with Spain we conquered 
the Philippines, destroyed the power of Spain in those 
islands, and took possession of their capital. The 
treaty cedes the Philippines to us. It is wisely and 
skilfully drawn. It commits us to no policy, to no 
course of action whatever in regard to the Philippines. 
When that treaty is ratified, we have full power and 
are absolutely free to do with those islands as we please. 
AVe must either ratify the treaty or reject it, for I can- 
not suppose that anyone would seriously advance the 
proposition that we should amend the treaty in such 
a way as to make pledges to Spain, and to Spain alone, 
and give bonds to Spain, and to Spain alone, for our 
good conduct in a matter which will be wholly our 
own to decide. Let us look, then, at the two alterna- 
tives. 

Suppose we ratify the treaty. The islands pass from 
the possession of Spain into our possession without 
committing us to any policy. I believe we can be 
trusted, as a people, to deal honestly and justly with the 
islands and their inhabitants thus given to our care. 
What our precise policy shall be I do not know; but 

194 



HENRY OABOT LODGE 195 

I believe that we shall have the courage not to depart 
from those islands fearfully, timidly, and unworthily, 
and leave them to anarchy among themselves and to 
the quick conquest of other powers. It is for us to 
decide the destiny of the Philippines, not for Europe ; 
and we can do it alone and without assistance. I be- 
lieve that we shall have the wisdom, the self-restraint, 
and the ability to restore peace and order in those isl- 
ands, and give to their people an opportunity for self- 
government and for freedom, under the protecting 
shield of the United States until the time shall come 
when they are able to stand alone, if they do not them- 
selves desire to remain under our protection. This is 
a great, a difficult, and a noble task. I believe that 
American civilization is entirely capable of fulfilling 
it, and I should not have that profound faith which I 
now cherish in American civilization and American 
manhood if I did not think so. 

Take now the other alternative. Suppose we reject 
the treaty or strike out the clause relating to the Philip- 
pines. That will hand the islands back to Spain; and 
I cannot conceive that any American should be willing 
to do that. Suppose we reject the treaty; what fol- 
lows? Let us look at it practically. We continue the 
state of war, and every sensible man in the country, 
every business interest, desires the re-establishment of 
peace, in law as well as in fact. At the same time, we 
repudiate the President and his action before the whole 
world, and the repudiation of the President, in such a 
matter as this, is, in my mind, the humiliation of the 
United States in the eyes of civilized mankind, and 
brands us as a people incapable of great affairs, or of 
taking rank where we belong, as one of the greatest 
of the great world-powers. 

The President cannot be sent back across the At- 
lantic in the person of his commissioners, hat in hand, 
to say to Spain with bated breath, " I am here in obedi- 



196 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

ence to the mandate of a minority of one-third of the 
Senate to tell you that we have been too victorious, 
and that you have yielded us too much, and that I am 
very sorry that I took the Philippines from you." I do 
not think that any American President would do that, 
or that any American would wish him to. Still less 
do I think that any American would withdraw General 
Otis and his soldiers and recall Admiral Dewey from 
the scene of his great victory, leaving it to be said of us 
that we had deserted our post without an effort to re- 
pair the i*uin we had made, or to save the people we 
had freed. 

Therefore, Mr. President, by rejecting the treaty 
we renew the state of war. The protocol is but the 
agreement of the Commander in Chief. When the 
treaty fails, it could be torn in pieces; but whether it 
is thrown aside or not, still we are in a state of war. 
The treaty commits the disposition of the Philippine 
Islands to Congress and the ways and practices of 
peace. Its rejection leaves them in the sole power of 
the President, subject to usages and practices of war. 
To the American people and their Government I am 
ready to intrust my life, my liberty, my honor; and 
what is far dearer to me than anything personal to 
myself, the lives and the liberty of my children and my 
children's children. If I am ready thus to trust my 
children to the government which the American peo- 
ple create and sustain, am I to shrink from intrusting 
to that same people the fate and fortune of the inhabi- 
tants of the Philippine Islands? I have beheld with 
amazement the spectres of wrong-doing which have 
been conjured up here and charged as possible to the 
American people. Mr. President, all this is so incon- 
ceivable to me that I cannot comprehend it. I can look 
at this question in only one way. A great responsibil- 
ity has come to us. If we are unfit for it and unequal to 
it, then we should shirk it and fly from it. But I be- 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 197 

lieve that we are both fit and capable, and that, there- 
fore, we should meet it and take it up. 
. I want to get this country out of war and back to 
peace. I want to take the disposition and control of 
the Philippines out of the hands of the war-power 
and place them where they belong, in the hands of the 
Congress and of the President. I want to enter upon a 
policy which shall enable us to give peace and self- 
government to the natives of those islands. The rejec- 
tion of the treaty makes all these things impossible, and 
the delay in its ratification retards and endangers them. 
If I did not have faith in the American people and 
their Government, I would do my best to prevent the 
ratification of the treaty, and I can see no other ground 
of opposition. But as I have a profound faith in both, 
I want to take those islands from Spain in the only 
way in which it can be done, by the ratification of the 
treaty, and then leave it to the President — wise, hu- 
mane, patriotic — to the American Congress, and to the 
American people, who have never failed in any great 
duty or feared to face any great responsibility, to deal 
with them in that spirit of justice, humanity, and lib- 
erty which has made us all that we are to-day or can 
ever hope to be. 



[Extracts from a speech made in Boston, October 30, 1899.] 
I. 

RETAIN THE PHILIPPINES 

It is in regard to the Philippine question, uppermost 
in the public mind, that I desire to speak to you. Let 
us begin by dismissing all the idle jargon and cant 
about imperialism, a perfectly meaningless word, full 
of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Let us con- 



198 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

aider in plain and simple fashion the practical ques- 
tion, what is our policy in regard to the Philippine 
Islands. We are rightfully in those islands. No title 
could be more perfect than ours. The only govern- 
ment and the only sovereignty in the Philippines were 
those of Spain, and they have been transferred to us. 
Rightfully and righteously in the Philippines, as a con- 
sequence of Dewey's great victory in Manila Bay, we 
have been attacked there by insurgent natives of the 
island under chiefs who would now be vegetating in 
exile at Hong Kong, unhonored and unsung, had it not 
been for the American fleet and the American army. 
These insurgents, just before the ratification of the 
treaty of peace, attacked our troops, wantonly and 
without provocation, and that was the way the war 
began. The insurgent leaders showed to us the black- 
est ingratitude, and there is no proof whatever that they 
represent even the Tagal minority of the people of one 
island. Their leader is a self-seeking adventurer who 
has made himself dictator and created for his own pur- 
poses whatever shadow of government they have. 
That, in plain language, is the situation, and such be- 
ing the situation, what does it behoove us to do? 

For my own part, I have neither doubt nor question. 
I believe in retaining the Philippine Islands, and have 
always believed in that policy. They should be re- 
tained as a possession of the United States, not incor- 
porated in our body politic nor brought within our 
tariff. We can trust ourselves to govern them well and 
to gain the entire assent of the governed. I believe 
that we should first put down disorder and restore 
peace, and that then we should give to those islands the 
best government possible, which I know we are en- 
tirely capable of doing. I believe that our first and 
immediate duty, to which all others are subordinate, is 
to push this war with all the energy and resources we 
can command to a prompt and successful conclusion, 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 199 

and I, therefore, shall sustain with my utmost effort 
the administration of President McKinley, which is 
charged with that duty, in all measures for the accom- 
plishment of its difficult task. Such is my own posi- 
tion, such I believe to be the right position to be taken 
by the people of the United States, and I have no doubt 
that they will take it. 

Let me now give my reasons for this position: They 
are of two kinds. One affecting the interests of the 
United States, the other our duty as a nation. Both 
reasons are intimately related. I have always believed 
that the cardinal principle of American statesmanship 
should be to secure for the farmers of the country the 
largest retm-ns, and for the wage-earners the highest 
possible wages and the fullest employment. The at- 
tainment of these great objects rests primarily, and 
must always rest, upon the initiative, the energy, the 
enterprise, and the individual independence of the 
American people. 

But it must be the policy of our Government 
to give to these national qualities the fullest scope, 
to insure them a fair field, and to guard them 
from any competition which individual effort cannot 
meet alone. The struggle of this age of ours is in the 
conflict of economic forces. The great nations of the 
earth are competing in a desperate struggle for the 
world's trade, and in that competition, if we would 
have our farms profitable and our labor highly paid 
and fully employed, we must not be left behind. In 
the economic struggle the great nations of Europe for 
many years past have been seizing all the waste places, 
and all the weakly held lands of the earth, as the surest 
means of trade development. Some years ago that 
process of seizure began in South America, and if we 
had not intervened it would have been comparatively 
but a short time before South America would have 
been parcelled out like Africa. We did intervene, and 



200 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

to some purpose. There will be no parcelling out of 
that continent and no seizures of land by any European 
power. 

We should use all our vast influence to promote in 
those regions peace and good government, upon which 
prosperity and development rest. Africa has been 
divided, and there again we must take our chance with 
the rest; but over in Asia there is a market greater than 
all those I have mentioned — the market of China. The 
coast on the other side has become of vital interest to 
us, for we mean that part of the mighty river of East- 
ern trade shall flow no longer westward, but turn its 
course to the East, and pour through the Golden Gate, 
the deep waters of Portland, and ere long through the 
Nicaragua Canal into the United States. Our trade 
with China has been growing rapidly. We ask no 
favors; we only ask that w^e shall be admitted to that 
great market upon the same terms with the rest of the 
w^orld. But within a few years we have seen Russia 
closing in upon the Chinese Empire. To her vast pos- 
sessions in Europe and Siberia she is planning to add 
the Chinese Empire, with its four hundred and fifty 
millions of people. If she succeeds we shall not only 
be excluded from those markets, but we shall stand 
face to face with a power controlling an extent of ter- 
ritory and a mass of population the like of which the 
world has never seen. In the presence of such a 
colossus of despotism and military socialism, the wel- 
fare of every free people is in danger. 

Long before anyone dreamed that we should ever 
know the Philippines except by name, some of us in 
Washington had foreseen this peril looming on the 
horizon, and had realized that, sooner or later, the 
United States, in mere self-defence, would be obliged 
to take an interest in the Chinese question, and to insist 
that we should not be shut out from those markets. It 
was becoming apparent that the owners of one side of 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 201 

the Pacific could no longer remain indifferent to the 
fate of the other side. But how or in what way we 
were to assert or maintain our rights the wisest man 
was not prepared to say. Suddenly came the Spanish 
War, Dewey's fleet was at Manila, and we were the 
masters of the Philippines. AYe were an Eastern 
power. We held the cross-roads of the Pacific at 
Hawaii, and we had our foothold on the Island of 
Luzon. 



II. 

'AN EASTERN POWER 

A VERY distinguished French writer and economist 
sees in our appearance in the Philippines not merely 
the direct value of the islands to us, but the fact that 
our coming there makes us an Eastern power, and that 
we may be able to save the East, not solely for our- 
selves, but for France, and for all the nations of West- 
em Europe. He sees that by throwing our weight into 
the scales we may be able to keep those vast regions 
and those teeming millions, not only open to our trade 
and commerce, but open to the light of Western civil- 
ization, and thus save them from sinking down into the 
darkness of the Russian winter. The master of Manila 
can make terms with every power in the East, and 
those vast markets must be held open in the interests 
of our industry and our commerce, of our farmers and 
our working-men, to the free competition of mankind, 
a contest in which the genius of American enterprise 
need fear no rival. 

I know it will be said that these are remote ques- 
tions. It certainly is not a question of to-day, or of 
next year, or of, perhaps, the next twenty years, but it 
is coming, and we must be prepared. Now is the ac- 



202 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

cepted time. I do not want this generation to fail in 
the task which has been imposed upon it; I do not want 
our children and our children's children, reaping a 
bitter harvest which has grown from our mistakes or 
our cowardice, to look back to us and say, " O, ye of 
little faith, what have ye done? " I want them to look 
back to us as we look back to the men who made the 
Constitution, not for thirteen little States, but with a 
far look into the future, for the government of a na- 
tion one day to be master of a continent. I want them 
to be able to say of us that we saw that the United 
States could not be turned into a gigantic Switzerland 
or Holland, that it could not be a hermit-nation hiding 
a defenceless, feeble body within a huge shell; that it 
could not be shut up and kept from its share of the 
world's commerce until it was smothered by a power 
hostile to it in every conception of justice and liberty, 
when it might have prevented such a fate. 

One word more. There is another side to this ques- 
tion, the side of duty and honor. We were brought to 
the Philippines by the fortune of war. I can conceive 
of differences of opinion as to the wisdom of our keep- 
ing them. I can understand differences of opinion as 
to our methods of governing and administering them, 
but I cannot understand when our soldiers are in the 
field, face to face with an enemy, that there should be 
any party, or any organization of men in this country, 
ready to cry out, " Surrender! " 

The soldiers of the United States in the Philippines, 
where they have the right to be by the laws of nations, 
by the laws of this country, and by the laws of sound 
morals, are fighting with the public enemies of the 
United States. Under those circumstances I see but 
one course. I do not know how others may vote, but I 
vote with the army that w^ears the uniform and carries 
the flag of my country. When the enemy has yielded 
and the war is over, we can discuss other matters of 



HENRY CABOT LODGE 203 

government and administration. We took from Spain 
the sovereignty of those islands; we alone stand be- 
tween those islands and utter anarchy, or their con- 
quest by Russia or Germany. I am opposed to turning 
those islands over to anarchy. 

The proposition that we should allow the first self- 
chosen dictator who comes along to establish a gov- 
ernment, and that we should agree to stand outside and 
do nothing but protect him and fight any other nation 
that he chooses to pick a quarrel with, is too absurd 
and too monstrous to require refutation. If we are to 
have responsibility we will have the power that goes 
with it. I am opposed to turning those islands over to 
any other nation. I believe that we can give to those 
people a larger measure of peace and happiness, of 
freedom and prosperity than any other nation in the 
world, for I believe in the capacity, in the honesty, and 
the good faith of the American people. I think, there- 
fore, that it is our duty to stay there; and a nation, like 
a man, must not fail in its duty. We are the youth 
among the nations. I do not believe that the word 
" fail " is yet printed in the American dictionary. 

The world has been largely governed, and always 
will be largely governed, not by cool reasoning or by 
philosophy, but by sentiment. ]\Iankind is moved by 
faiths and by beliefs. It was belief in Rome that made 
Rome great; it was a profound religious faith which 
sw-ept all Europe into the Crusades. It was faith in 
democracy, in man and in his destiny, which enabled 
France, one hundred years ago, to face banded Europe 
and carry its armies from Madrid to Moscow. It was 
faith in the Union, faith in the future of the United 
States, faith in democracy, which made this people 
fight four years of civil war to a victorious conclusion. 
Eaith and belief in our country in this time, when too 
many of the old faiths and the old creeds have faded 
and grown dim, are the most precious possessions that 



204 PATKIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

we have. Anything which tends to lower or weaken 
that faith is a deadly injury. 

If we fail in a national duty, if we retreat before an 
armed enemy, we weaken and we injure the national 
glory and the faith that goes with it. We can subdue 
this insurrection, we can bring peace and order to these 
islands, we can give liberty and prosperity to their in- 
habitants. It is our duty to stay there and to do these 
things. Shall we hesitate in the presence of such a 
duty and such vast and vital interests of our own? 
Shall we make what Dante calls the " great refusal," 
shall we call home Dewey's ships, shall we bid our 
soldiers retreat, shall we haul down the flag, and as we 
fold it up write upon it, in black letters, '' Failure " — 
a word which has never been there yet? There is but 
one answer that I can make to these questions ; but one 
answer that the American people, brave and high- 
spirited as they are, will make, and that answer is, 
" Never, never, never! " 



JOH^ D. LOITG 
OUR NEW PROBLEMS 

[From a speech at the Home Market Club's reception to President 
McKinley, Boston, February 16, 1899.] 

As an outside observer, I liave been struck with the 
various methods in which this subject of the Philip- 
pines has been discussed. One of these methods may 
be styled as the oratorical-declamatory. On the one 
hand this method has found expression in saying that 
the duty of the American eagle is to hold on to every- 
thing on which he puts his claws, reminding one of 
Abraham Lincoln's story of the modest farmer, who 
said that all the land he wanted to own was only what 
adjoined his farm. Under this head, also, comes the stir- 
ring cry, which never fails to captivate the popular ear, 
that wherever the flag has once been let loose, there it 
must always float. All this sounds well, but needs a 
second thought. 

On the other hand, is the equally extravagant talk 
about the greed of conquest and the reduction of the 
Filipino to the wretched condition of vassalage and 
slavery. Those who indulge in this exuberance of 
rhetoric forget that our war was with Spain, and that 
we have simply transfen-ed to the United States, as 
the result of our victory in that war, the sovereignty 
which Spain had over the Philippines; that this trans- 
fer was incidentally very much in the interest of the 
islanders — more, many think, than in our own; and 
that it relieved them from a yoke under which they 
groaned, giving them the fairest promise on which 

205 



206 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

their eyes ever opened — a promise which the Ameri- 
can people will redeem. 

The second method of discussion may be called the 
judicial-deliberate. Here, too, on the one hand, are 
those of whom the most distinguished is, perhaps, our 
revered Governor Boutwell, who, I sometimes think, 
is the noblest Roman of them all. He is thoroughly 
logical and consistent. I do not believe he is much 
troubled with the constitutional refinements which the 
moment they are stated fade into thin air. He is 
troubled by no notion that it is our solemn duty not to 
permit these islands to be restored to Spain, and at the 
same time our equally solemn duty — which it is rather 
puzzling to reconcile with the other — that the United 
States is not to accept the disposition of them. He puts 
his feet on the substantial rock of letting them abso- 
lutely alone, withdrawing our soldiers and our ships 
of war, and returning to the integrity and simplicity 
of our old-time American continental establishment. 

But, on the other hand, is the view held, I think, by 
the great majority of our people, that we cannot thus 
easily, having once put our hands to the plough, look 
back; and that events, not within our control, have 
brought us to responsibilities which we cannot disre- 
gard and let alone, but which we must face and meet. 

The matter is one of great moment. I most heartily 
wish it had never confronted us. I wish the world 
would kindly let up for a while and not move so fast. 
I wish also that youth would stay. I would rather be a 
boy again than to be Secretary of the Navy. But I 
think it is a mistake to say that it is beyond the ability 
of the American people to deal with a problem with 
which other nations have successfully dealt, or that it 
is a harder problem than many problems which are 
upon us already. The problem of the immense accumu- 
lations of wealth ; the municipal problem of our great 
cities, soon gathering within their limits more than 



JOHN D. LONG 207 

half the population of the country; the problem of 
capital and labor; the problems of social crimes, intem- 
perance, and political integrities are even harder, and 
fraught with graver dangers. Indeed, I am not sure 
that this new friction in the far-off tropics may not be, 
when applied to these older maladies in the body- 
politic, a sort of what the physicians call a counter- 
irritant — an outlet for the pent-up fevers now in the 
national blood. 

There are those w^ho regard every new crisis as what 
they call " the beginning of the end." But this phrase 
is like the foolish nurse's cry of " ghost " to a child. 
The beginning of the end was long ago — at the very 
birth of the Republic. God has so ordered the laws of 
growth that no life of plants, or man, or nation, works 
out its destiny and bears its fruit except by ripening to 
its completion. First the blade, then the ear, then the 
full com in the ear. The glory of Greece and of Rome 
is in the culmination of their civilization, art, literature, 
and political power; and therein is their contribution 
to the higher civilizations which have succeeded. 

So it must needs be with the great powers of to-day, 
Great Britain and Germany and America. " Thou 
fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it 
die." Of what infinitely greater value in the forma- 
tion of all standards of character and service are the 
lives of Washington and Lincoln, because they are 
mighty shadows of the past, rather than lean and slip- 
pered figures lingering on the thresholds of to-day! 
There never was a more beautiful triumph of the 
poetry of architecture, or a finer realization of the pa- 
triotism and genius of our country embodied in ma- 
terial shape and outline, than that white city on the 
borders of Lake Michigan, in which was held the recent 
World's Fair. But the impressiveness and untiring de- 
light of that scene, which now lingers like an exquisite 
strain of music on the memory, would be lost if it had 



208 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

lasted longer. The flames consumed it, and it became 
eternal ; and that mortal put on immortality. 

It is a poor philosophy that peers hopelessly into the 
futm'e, only to leam how far off is the day, not of ruin 
and dissolution, for that will never come, but of transi- 
tion to some new form of civilization, some new form 
of national life, some new arrangement of national 
boundaries, all of which are necessary accompaniments 
of the enlarging and advancing progress of mankind. 
Meantime, our duty is to meet the responsibility that is 
upon us. Undoubtedly it would be easier if we could 
shift it from our shoulders, and lay it down. It is with 
a WTench that any man, especially any son of New 
England, familiar with its traditions and recalling its 
charms of provincial life, becomes aware that these 
must, betimes, give way to larger demands and more 
trying exigencies. And yet, the fields that are before 
us are not altogether untrodden, and a Christian na- 
tion should not lose heart at the opportunity of carry- 
ing its education, its industries, its institutions, and its 
untold blessings to the Philippines. 

Meantime, our association with them may well be 
accompanied with benefit to them and benefit to us. 
There will be work in it for the philanthropist, the 
scholar, and the humanitarian. There will be oppor- 
tunities for the outlet of our own enterprise and trade 
and commerce. The imagination kindles as it recog- 
nizes what those islands of the East may yet become. 
They are almost an unknown land. We have not yet 
begun to estimate the variety and opulence of their 
material wealth ; their splendid forests, rich with every 
variety of wood in almost incalculable abundance; 
their mines of ore of every sort; their valleys teeming 
with luxuriant productiveness, and capable of supply- 
ing the food of the world. 

Why doubt and repine, when the time of doubting 
and repining is inexorably past, and when doubting 



JOHN D. LONG 209 

and repining can now do no good? Why shall not the 
United States enter upon the trust imposed upon it, 
with the determination that, as it began by freeing 
them from the yoke of oppression, it will go on and 
insure them still larger blessings of liberty and civ- 
ilization, and will so bear itself toward them that in 
securing their welfare it shall also promote its own, 
and, as always happens when men or nations co-oper- 
ate in the spirit of justice and good- will, the reward 
shall come to both in their mutual increase? Is not 
that the statesmanship of the great Master who limited 
not His mission or that of His deciples to His own 
chosen people, but proclaimed that His Gospel should 
be preached in all the world unto all nations. 



PRESENTATION OF SWORD TO ADMIRAL 
DEWEY 

[A speech delivered Oct. 3, 1899, at the Capitol at Washington.] 

My Dear Admiral, let me read a few extracts 
from our official correspondence, covering less than a 
fortnight's time, and now known the world over: 

" Washington, April 24, 1898. 
"Dewey, Hong Kong : 

"War has commenced between the United States and 
Spain. Proceed at once to Philippine Islands. Begin oper- 
ations at once, particularly against the Spanish fleet. You 
must capture vessels or destroy. Use utmost endeavors. 

Long." 

" Manila, May 1st. 
"Secretary of the Navy, Washington. 

" The squadron arrived at Manila at daybreak this morn- 
ing. Immediately engaged enemy and destroyed the fol- 
lowing vessels. . . . The squadron is uninjured. Few 
men were slightly wounded. Dewey." 



210 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

In these few words wliich I liave read, what a vol- 
urae of history; what a record of swift, high, heroic 
discharge of duty! You went; you saw; you con- 
quered. It seems but yesterday that the Republic, full 
of anxiety, strained its listening ear to catch the first 
word from those distant islands of the sea. It came 
flashing over the wires that May morning as the sun 
bursts through the clouds, and filled every heart with 
the illumination of its good cheer. In the twinkling of 
an eye yoiu- name was on every lip; the blessing of 
every American was on your head; and yom* country 
strode instantly forward a mightier power among the 
nations of the world. As we welcome you back there 
comes back, also, the vivid picture of that time, with all 
its hopes and fears, and then with all its swift succeed- 
ing triumph and glory. 

Let me now read the act of Congress in pursuance of 
which we are here: 

It was by this solemn enactment, approved by the 
President, that the people of the United States made 
provision for putting in material form one expression 
of their appreciation of your valor as an ofiicer of their 
navy, and of your great achievement as their repre- 
sentative in opening the door to a new era in the civil- 
ization of the world. The victory at Manila Bay gave 
you rank with the most distinguished naval heroes of 
all time. ISTor was your merit most in the brilliant vic- 
tory which you achieved in a battle fought with the 
utmost gallantry and skill, waged without error and 
cro^vned with overw^helming success. It was still more 
in the nerve with which you sailed from Hong Kong 
to Manila Harbor; in the spirit of your conception of 
attack; in your high, commanding confidence as a 
leader who had weighed every risk and prepared for 
every emergency, and who also had that unfaltering 
determination to win, and that utter freedom from the 



JOHN D. LONG 211 

thought or possibility of swerving from his purpose, 
which are the very assurance of victory. 

iSlo captain ever faced a more cnicial test than when 
that morning, bearing the fate and the honor of your 
country in your hand, thousands of miles from home, 
with every foreign port in the world shut to you, noth- 
ing between you and annihilation but the thin sheath- 
ing of your ships, your cannon and your devoted officers 
and men, you moved upon the enemy's batteries on 
shore and on sea with unflinching faith and nerve, and 
before the sun was half-way up the heavens had silenced 
the guns of the foe, sunk the hostile fleet, demonstrated 
the supremacy of the American sea-power and trans- 
ferred to the United States an empire of the islands of 
the Pacific. Later, by your display of large powers of 
administration, by your poise and prudence, and by 
your great discretion, not only in act, but also in words, 
which is almost more important, you proved yourself 
a great representative citizen of the United States, as 
well as now its great naval hero. The lustre of the 
American navy was gloriously bright before, and you 
have added to it a new lustre. Its constellation of stars 
w^as glorious before, and you have added to it another 
star of the first magnitude. 

And yet, many of your grateful countrymen feel 
that, in the time to come, it may be your still greater 
honor that you struck the first blow, under the provi- 
dence of God, in the enfranchisement of those beauti- 
ful islands w^hich make that great empire of the sea; 
in relieving them from the bondage and oppression of 
centm'ies, and in putting them on their way, under the 
protecting shield of your country's guidance, to take 
their place in the civilization, the arts, the industries, 
the liberties, and all the good things of the most en- 
lightened and happy nations of the world; so that, gen- 
erations hence, your name shall be to them a household 
word, enshrined in their history and in their hearts. 



212 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Clouds and darkness may linger about them now, but 
the shining outcome is as sure as the rising of the sun. 
Whatever the passing tribulations and difficulties of 
the present moment, they will, in due time, soon and 
surely give way to the dawn of a glorious new day — a 
day not of any mere selfish imperial dominion of one 
people over another, but of the imperial moral and 
physical growth and expansion of all the peoples, what- 
ever their race or language or color, who are under 
the shelter of the broad shield of the United States of 
America. 

By authorizing the presentation of this sword to 
you as the mark of her approval, your country has rec- 
ognized, therefore, not only the great, rich fruits 
which, even before returning from your victory, you 
have poured into her lap, but also her own responsibil- 
ity to discharge the great trust which is thus put upon 
her and fulfil the destiny of her own gTOwth and of the 
empire that is now her charge. It is a new demand 
upon all the resources of her conscience, wisdom, and 
courage. It is a work in the speedy and beneficent con- 
summation of which she is entitled to the cordial help, 
sympathy, and uplift of all her citizens — not the faint- 
hearted doubts and teasing cavils of any of them. It 
is a work on which she has entered in the interest of 
early peace in these new lands, their stable govern- 
ment, the establishment in them of law and order, the 
security of life and property, and the American stand- 
ards of prosperity and home. Let those who fear re- 
member that though her children, guided by you, took 
the wings of the morning and now dwell in the utter- 
most parts of the sea, even there the hand of our 
fathers' God shall lead them and His right hand shall 
hold them. In this work, in view of the great part you 
have taken in the sudden development of her sov- 
ereignty, your full knowledge of the situation, and the 
just hold you have on the hearts of all her people, she 



JOHN D. LONG 218 

looks for your continued service and listens for your 
counsel in the high hope and purpose that the triumph 
of her peace shall be even greater than her triumph in 
war. 

It is my good fortune, under the terms of the enact- 
ment of Congress, to have the honor of presenting to 
you this beautiful sword. If, during the many coming 
years, which I trust will be yours, of useful service to 
your country, it shall remain sheathed in peace, as God 
grant it may, that fact will perhaps be due more than 
to anything else to the thoroughness with which you 
have already done its work. I congratulate you on 
your return across the sea in full health of mind and 
body to receive it here; here, in the national capital; 
here, on these consecrated steps where Lincoln stood; 
here, standing between the statue of the first President 
of the United States and him who is its living Presi- 
dent to-day; here, in this beautiful city adorned with 
the statues of its statesmen and heroes, the number in- 
complete until your own is added; here, amid this 
throng of citizens, who are only a type of the millions 
and millions more who are all animated by the same 
spirit of affectionate and grateful welcome. I cannot 
doubt that it is one of the proudest days of your life, 
and I know that it is one of the happiest in the heart of 
each one of your fellow-countrymen, wherever they 
are, whether on the Continent or on the far-off islands 
of the sea, 

Now, following the authorization of Congress, 
I present this sword of honor which I hold in my 
hand — my hand ! — rather let it go to you through the 
hand of one who in his youth also perilled his life 
and fought for his country in battle, and who to-day 
is the commander-in-chief of all our armies and navies, 
the President of the United States. 



214 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 



TEE AMERICAN NAVY 

[From a speech delivered at the Auditorium, Chicago, October 9, 
1899, at a banquet in honor of the President of the Umted States.] 

I CAN more properly, gentlemen, join with you in 
your appreciation of the navy because, although its 
head, I am yet only temporarily connected with it and 
can look at it from the outside, I sometimes think, 
however, that the great public applauding the salient 
merits overlooks others which are quite as deserving. 
You cheer for the men behind the guns; you give 
swords and banquets here and there to an admiral — 
and both are richly deserving of the tribute — but re- 
member that all up and down the line there are individ- 
uals whose names never get to your ears, or, if so, are 
already half-forgotten, who have earned unfading- 
laurels. !No man in the navy has rendered such 
service, however great, that others were not ready 
to fill the place and do as well. The navy is full 
of heroes unknown to fame. Its great merit is the 
professional spirit which runs through it; the high 
sense of duty; the lofty standards of service to 
which its hearts are loyal and which make them 
all equal to any duty. Who sings the praises of 
the chiefs of the naval stations and bureaus of the Navy 
Department who wept that there were no battles and 
glory for them, and who, remaining at their depart- 
mental posts, made such provision for the fitting out, 
the arming, the supplying, the feeding, the coaling, the 
equipping of your fleets, that the commanding officer 
on the deck had only to direct and use the forces which 
these, his brothers, had put in his hands ? Who repeats 
the names of the young ofiicers who pleaded for Hob- 
son's chance to risk his life in the hull and hell of the 
Merrimac? Who mentions the scores of seamen who 



JOHN D. LONG 215 

begged to be of tbe immortal seven who were bis com- 
panions in that forlorn hope? In the long watch be- 
fore Santiago the terror of our great battle-ships was 
the two Spanish torpedo-boat destroyers, those swift, 
fiendish sharks of the sea, very engines of death and de- 
struction, and yet, when the great battle came, it was 
the unprotected Gloucester, a converted yacht, the for- 
mer plaything and pleasure-boat of a summer vacation, 
which, without hesitation or turning, attacked these 
demons of the sea and sunk them both. I have always 
thought it the most heroic and gallant individual in- 
stance of fighting in the war. It was as if some light- 
clad youth, with no defence but his sword, threw him- 
self into the arena with armored gladiators and by his 
very dash and spirit laid them low. And yet who has 
given a sword or spread a feast to that purest flame of 
chivalrous heroism, Richard Wainwright? 

Who recalls all the still more varied services of our 
navy — its exploits and researches in the interest of 
science; its stimulus to international conunerce; its 
surveys of foreign harbors; its charting of the sea and 
marking of the pathway of the merchant-marine; its 
study of the stars ; its contributions, in short, to all the 
interests of an enlightened and progressive country? 

May I suggest, therefore, that with this broader view 
of our navy as not an outside adjunct of our institu- 
tions, but an integral part of them, it is a partial con- 
ception that criticises its recent development and its 
continued development in the future. It has not only 
given dignity and variety of service and strength to 
your Government, but think how it is linked in with all 
your industrial interests, with the employment of large 
bodies of labor, with the consumption of all sorts of ma- 
terial, stimulating marine construction, building docks 
and contributing to this very business activity and pros- 
perity which are the features of this thrifty time. It is 
not too much to predict that the development of our 



216 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

navy is the beginning also of a new era in our merchant 
marine, in maritime construction, and hence in mari- 
time transportation, the American bottom carrying the 
American flag again on all the oceans of the globe. 

I do not forget that the present glory of the navy is 
only a part of the splendid work of the Government, 
which has been equally progressive in other branches 
of the public service. Think for a moment what has 
been done in the last few years. The troublesome 
questions of the currency and the tariff are to-day no 
cause for anxiety, so healthy and efiicient is the body- 
politic in both these respects. The national credit is as 
solid as a rock; the nation's dollar is good and abun- 
dant; the treasury is full, and even the great Pacific 
railroad obligations, which have been the despair of 
previous years, have all been collected and paid in. 
Labor is in demand and wages are high. 

Our foreign commerce is carrying in a sw^ollen tor- 
rent the products of our industry the world over. You 
can hardly point to any great interest of the country 
that is not as you would have it; you can hardly think 
of any great principle which you deem vital in govern- 
ment that is not enforced. What more do you want? 
In the war with Spain our fleet was ordered to Manila 
because there was there a Spanish fleet, and every mili- 
tary interest demanded its capture or destruction. 
When that was done every military interest required 
not that our fleet be withdrawn, but that our hand upon 
the enemy's throat should there remain until his sur- 
render. Wlien that surrender came, and with it the 
transfer of the sovereignty of those islands from Spain 
to the United States, every consideration demanded 
that the President should hold them up, not toss them 
into the caldron of anarchy, and when violence began, 
should restore order, yet stretching out always in his 
hands the tender and opportunity for peace and bene- 
ficent government until Congress in its wisdom shall 



JOHN D. LONG 217 

determine what their future status shall be. What 
more or what less could he do and do his duty? 

Yes, my friends, the navy is, as the army is, as the 
school is, as the workshop is, as the counting-room 
is, as the college is — the navy is the State. You are the 
navy, you are the army, you are the State, for you are 
the citizen. On you each are the responsibilities of 
your country, on you are its great duties. Awake to 
your high call ! Do not fret, do not whine, do not fear 
to take up the responsibilities and to discharge the 
duties. Put your shoulder to the wheel, put your cheer 
into the heart of the man who is at your front. Be a 
part of the great progress and beneficence of the United 
States. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 
DUTY DETERMINES DESTINY 

[Delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, October 19, 1898.] 

This war has put upon the nation grave responsibili- 
ties. Their extent was not anticipated, and could not 
have been well foreseen. We cannot escape the obliga- 
tions of victory. We cannot avoid the serious ques- 
tions which have been brought home to us by the 
achievements of our arms on land and sea. We are 
bound in conscience to keep and perform the covenants 
which the war has sacredly sealed with mankind. Ac- 
cepting war for humanity's sake, we must accept all 
obligations which the war in duty and honor imposed 
upon us. The splendid victories we have achieved 
would be our eternal shame and not our everlasting 
glory if they led to the weakening of our original lofty 
purpose or to the desertion of the immortal principles 
on which the national Government was founded and in 
accordance with whose ennobling spirit it has ever 
since been faithfully administered. 

The war with Spain was undertaken, not that the 
United States should increase its territory, but that op- 
pression at our very doors should be stopped. This 
noble sentiment must continue to animate us, and we 
must give to the world the full demonstration of the 
sincerity of our purpose. Duty determines destiny. 
Destiny which results from duty performed may bring 
anxiety and perils, but never failure and dishonor. 
Pursuing duty may not always lead by smooth paths. 

218 



WILLIAM Mckinley 219 

Another course may look easier and more attractive, 
but pursuing duty for duty's sake is always sure and 
safe and honorable. 

It is not within the power of man to foretell the 
future and to solve unerringly its mighty problems. 
Almighty God has His plans and methods for human 
progTess, and not infrequently they are shrouded for 
the time being in impenetrable mystery. Looking 
backward we can see how the hand of destiny builded 
for us and assigned us tasks whose full meaning was 
not apprehended even by the wisest statesmen of their 
times. 

Our colonial ancestors did not enter upon their war 
originally for independence. Abraham Lincoln did 
not start out to free the slaves, but to save the Union. 
The war with Spain was not of our seeking, and some 
of its consequences may not be to our liking. Our 
vision is often defective. Short-sightedness is a com- 
mon malady, but the closer we get to things or they get 
to us the clearer our view and the less obscure our duty. 
Patriotism must be faithful as well as fervent; states- 
manship must be wise as well as fearless — not the 
statesmanship which will command the applause of the 
hour, but the judgment of posterity. 

The progress of a nation can alone prevent degenera- 
tion. There must be new life and purpose, or there will 
be weakness and decay. There must be broadening of 
thought as well as broadening of trade. Territorial 
expansion is not alone and always necessary to na- 
tional advancement. There must be a constant move- 
ment toward a higher and nobler civilization, a civiliza- 
tion that shall make its conquests without resort to 
war, and achieve its greatest victories pursuing the arts 
of peace. 



220 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

[Extracts from a speech delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Atlanta, 
Ga., December 15, 1898. J 

I. 

A NATION INDIVISIBLE FOREVER 

I CANNOT Withhold from these people mj profound 
thanks for their hearty reception and the good-will 
which they have shown me everywhere and in every 
way since I have been their guest. I thank them for 
the opportunity which this occasion gives me of meet- 
ing and greeting them and for the pleasure it affords 
me to participate with them in honoring the army and 
navy, to whose achievements we are indebted for one 
of the most brilliant chapters of American history. 

Under hostile fire on a foreign soil, fighting in a com- 
mon cause, the memory of old disagreements has faded 
into history. From camp and campaign there comes 
the magic healing which has closed ancient wounds and 
effaced their scars. For this result every American 
patriot will forever rejoice. It is no small indemnity 
for the cost of war. 

This Government has proved itself invincible in the 
recent war and out of it has come a nation which will 
remain indivisible forevermore. ITo worthier con- 
tributions have been made in patriotism and in men 
than by the people of these Southern States. When at 
last the opportunity came they were eager to meet it 
and with promptness responded to the call of the 
coimtry. Intrusted with the able leadership of men 
dear to them, who had marched with their fathers 
under another flag, now fighting under the old flag 
again, they have gloriously helped to defend its spot- 
less folds and added new lustre to its shining stars. 

That flag has been planted in two hemispheres, and 



WILLIAM Mckinley 221 

there it remains, the symbol of liberty and law, of peace 
and progress. Who will withdraw from the people 
over whom it floats its protecting folds ? Who will haul 
it down? 

The victory we celebrate is not that of a ruler, a 
President of a Congress, but of the people. The army 
whose valor we admire and the navy whose achieve- 
ments we applaud were not assembled by draft or con- 
scription, but from voluntary enlistment. The heroes 
came from civil as well as military life. Trained and 
untrained soldiers wrought our triumphs. 

The peace we have won is not a selfish truce of arms, 
but one whose conditions presage good to humanity. 
The domains secured under the treaty yet to be acted 
upon by the Senate came to us, not as the result of a 
crusade of conquest, but as the reward of temperate, 
faithful, and fearless response to the call of conscience, 
which could not be disregarded by a liberty-loving and 
Christian people. 

We have so borne ourselves in the conflict and in our 
intercourse with the powers of the world as to escape 
complaint of complication and give universal confi- 
dence in high purpose and unselfish sacrifices for strug- 
gling peoples. The task is not fulfilled. Indeed, it is 
only just begun. This is the time for earnest, not faint 
hearts. The most serious work is still before us, and 
every energy of heart and mind must be bent and the 
impulses of partisanship subordinated to its faithful 
execution. 

This war was waged, not for revenge or aggrandize- 
ment, but for our oppressed neighbors, for their free- 
dom and amelioration. It was short but decisive. It 
recorded a succession of significant victories on land 
and sea. It gave new honors to American arms. It 
has brought new problems to the Republic, whose solu- 
tion will tax the genius of our people. United we will 
meet and solve them with honor to ourselves and to the 



222 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

lasting benefit of all concerned. The war brought us 
together; its settlement will keep us together. 

Reunited! Glorious realization! It expresses the 
thought of my mind and the long-deferred consumma- 
tion of my heart's desire as I stand in this presence. It 
interprets the hearty demonstration here witnessed and 
is the patriotic refrain of all sections and of all lovers 
of the Republic. 

Reunited ! One country again and one country for- 
ever! Proclaim it from the press and pulpit! Teach 
it in the schools ! Write it across the skies ! The world 
sees and feels it! It cheers every heart, North and 
South, and brightens the life of every American home. 
Let nothing ever strain it again. At peace with all the 
world and with each other, what can stand in the path- 
way of our progress and prosperity ? 



XL 

NEW NATIONAL DUTIES 

" New occasions teach new duties." To this nation 
and to every nation there come formative periods in its 
life and history. New conditions can be met only by 
new methods. Meeting these conditions hopefully and 
facing them bravely and wisely is to be the mightiest 
test of American virtue and capacity. Without aban- 
doning past limitations, traditions, and principles, but 
by meeting present opportunities and obligations, we 
shall show ourselves worthy of the great trust which 
civilization has imposed upon us. 

At Bunker Hill liberty was at stake, at Gettysburg 
the Union was the issue, before Manila and Santiago 
our armies fought not for gain or revenge, but for 
human rights. They contended for the freedom of the 
oppressed, for whose welfare the United States has 



WILLIAM Mckinley 223 

never failed to lend a helping liand to establish and 
uphold, and I believe never will. The glories of the 
war cannot be dimmed, but the result will be incom- 
plete and unworthy of us unless supplemented by civil 
victories, harder possibly to win, in their way no less 
indispensable. 

We will have our difficulties and our embarrass- 
ments. They follow all victories and accompany all 
great responsibilities. They are inseparable from every 
great movement or reform. But American capacity 
has triumphed over all in the past. Doubts have in 
the end vanished. Apparent dangers have been avert- 
ed or avoided, and our own history shows that progress 
has come so naturally and steadily on the heels of new 
and grave responsibilities that as we look back upon 
the acquisitions of teiTitory by our fathers we are filled 
with wonder that any doubt could have existed or any 
apprehension could have been felt of the wisdom of 
their action or their capacity to grapple with the then 
untried and mighty problems. 

The Republic is to-day larger, stronger, and better 
prepared than ever before for wise and profitable de- 
velopments in new directions and along new lines. 
Even if the minds of some of our own people are still 
disturbed by perplexing and anxious doubts, in which 
all of us have shared and still share, the genius of 
American civilization will, I believe, be found both 
original and creative and capable of subserving all the 
great interests which shall be confided to our keeping. 

Forever in the right, following the best impulses 
and clinging to high purposes, using properly and 
within right limits our power and opportunities, hon- 
orable reward must inevitably follow. The outcome 
cannot be in doubt. We could have avoided all the 
difficulties that lie across the pathway of the nation 
if a few months ago we had coldly ignored the piteous 
appeals of the starving and oppressed inhabitants of 



224 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Cuba. If we had blinded ourselves to the conditions 
so near our shores and turned a deaf ear to our suf- 
fering neighbors the issue of territorial expansion in 
the Antilles and the East Indies would not have been 
raised. 

But could we have justified such a course? Is there 
anyone who would now declare another to have been 
the better course? With less humanity and less cour- 
age on our part, the Spanish flag, instead of the Stars 
and Stripes, would still be floating at Cavite, at Ponce, 
and at Santiago, and a " chance in the race of life " 
would be wanting to millions of human beings who 
to-day call this nation noble, and who, I trust, will live 
to call it blessed. 

Thus far we have done our supreme duty. Shall 
we now, when the victory won in war is written in the 
treaty of peace, and the civilized world applauds and 
waits in expectation, turn timidly away from the du- 
ties imposed upon the country by its own great deeds? 
And when the mists fade and we see with clearer vis- 
sion, may we not go forth rejoicing in a strength which 
has been employed solely for humanity and always 
been tempered with justice and mercy, confident of 
our ability to meet the exigencies which await us, be- 
cause confident that our course is one of duty and our 
cause that of i-ight? 



[Extracts from a speech delivered in Boston, February 17, 1899.] 

I. 

EIGH OBLIGATIONS 

I DO not know why in the year 1899 this Kepublic 
has unexpectedly had placed before it mighty problems 
which it must face and meet. They have come and 
are here, and they could not be kept away. Many 



WILLIAM Mckinley 225 

who were impatient for tlie conflict a year ago, ap- 
parently heedless of its larger results, were the first 
to cry out against the far-reaching consequences of 
their own act. Those of us who dreaded war most 
and whose every eftort was directed to prevent it had 
fears of new and grave problems which might follow 
its inauguration. The evolution of events which no 
man could control has brought these problems upon us. 
Certain it is that they have not come through any 
fault on our own part, but as a high obligation, and 
we meet them with clear conscience and unselfish pur- 
pose and with good heart resolve to undertake their 
solution. 

War was declared in April, 1898, with practical 
unanimity by the Congress, and, once upon us, was 
sustained by like unanimity among the people. There 
had been many who had tried to avert it, as, on the 
other hand, there w^ere many who would have precipi- 
tated it at an earlier date. In its prosecution and con- 
clusion the great majority of our coimtrymen of every 
section believed they w^ere fighting in a just cause, 
and at home or on sea or in the field, they had part in 
the glorious triumphs. It was the war of the undivided 
nation. 

Every gTeat act in its progress, from Manila to Santi- 
ago, from Guam to Porto Rico, met universal and 
hearty commendation. The protocol commanded the 
practically unanimous approval of the American peo- 
ple. It was welcomed by every lover of peace beneath 
the flag. The Philippines, like Cuba and Porto Rico, 
were intrusted to our hands by the war, and to that 
great trust, under the pro^adence of God and in the 
name of human progress and civilization, we are com- 
mitted. It is a trust we have not sought, it is a trust 
from which we will not flinch. The American people 
will hold up the hands of their servants at home to 
whom they commit its execution, while Dewey and 



226 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Otis and the brave men whom they command will have 
the support of the country in upholding our flag where 
it now floats, the symbol and assurance of liberty and 
justice. 

What nation was ever able to write an accurate pro- 
gramme of the war uj)on which it was entering, much 
less decree in advance the scope of its results? Con- 
gress can declare war, but a Higher Power decrees its 
bounds and fixes its relations and responsibilities. The 
President can direct the movements of soldiers on the 
field and fleets upon the sea, but he cannot foresee the 
close of such movements or prescribe their limits. He 
cannot anticipate or avoid the consequences, but he 
must meet them. ISTo accurate map of nations en- 
gaged in war can be traced until the war is over, nor 
can the measure of responsibility be fixed till the last 
gun is fired and the verdict embodied in the stipula- 
tions of peace. 



11. 

DISPOSITION OF THE PHILIPPINES 

We hear no complaint of the relation created by the 
war between this Government and the Islands of Cuba 
and Porto Rico. There are some, however, who regard 
the Philippines as in a different relation; but what- 
ever variety of ^^ews there may be on this phase of 
the question, there is universal agreement that the Phil- 
ippines shall not be turned back to Spain. N'o true 
American can consent to that. Even if imwilling to 
accept them ourselves, it would have been a weak eva- 
sion of manly duty to require Spain to transfer them 
to some other power, or powers, and thus shirk our 
own responsibility. Even if we had, as we did not 
have, the power to compel such a transfer, it could not 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 227 

have been made without the most serious international 
complications. 

Such a course could not be thought of. And yet, 
had we refused to accept the cession of them we should 
have had no power over them, even for their own 
good. We could not discharge the responsibilities upon 
us imtil these islands became ours either by conquest or 
treaty. There was but one alternative and that was 
either Spain or the United States in the Philippines. 
The other suggestions — first, that they should be tossed 
into the arena for the strife of nations; or, second, be 
lost to the anarchy and chaos of no protectorate at all 
— were too shameful to be considered. 

The treaty gave them to the United States. Could 
we have required less and done our duty ? Could we, 
after freeing the Filipinos from the domination of 
Spain, have left them without government and with- 
out power to protect life and property or to perform 
the international obligations essential to an indepen- 
dent state? Could we have left them in a state of an- 
archy and justified ourselves in our own consciences or 
before the tribunal of mankind ? Could we have done 
that in the sight of God and man? ' - 

Our concern was not for territory or trade or em- 
pire, but for the people whose interests and destiny, 
without our willing it, had been put in our hands. It 
was with this feeling that from the first day to the last 
not one word or line went from the executive in Wash- 
ington to our military and naval commanders at Manila 
or to our peace commissioners at Paris that did not 
put as the sole purpose to be kept in mind first, after 
the success of our arms and the maintenance of our 
own honor, the welfare and happiness and the rights 
of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands. 

Did we need their consent to perform a great act for 
humanity? We had it in every aspiration of their 
minds, in every hope of their hearts. Was it necessary 



228 PATKIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

to ask their consent to capture Manila, the capital of 
their islands? Did we ask their consent to liberate them 
from Spanish sovereignty or to enter Manila Bay and 
destroy the Spanish sea-power there? We did not ask 
these; we were obeying a higher moral obligation 
which rested on us and which did not require any- 
body's consent. We were doing our duty by them as 
God gave us the light to see our duty, with the con- 
sent of our own consciences and with the approval of 
civilization. 

Every present obligation has been met and fulfilled 
in the expulsion of Spanish sovereignty from their isl- 
ands, and while the war that destroyed it was in prog- 
ress we could not ask their views. Nor can we now 
ask their consent. Indeed, can anyone tell me in what 
form it could be marshalled and ascertained until peace 
and order, so necessary to reign of reason, shall be se- 
cured and established? A reign of terror is not the 
kind of rule under which right action and deliberate 
judgment are possible. It is not a good time for the 
liberator to submit important questions concerning 
liberty and government to the liberated while they are 
engaged in shooting down their rescuers. 

We have now ended the war with Spain. The treaty 
has been ratified by more than two-thirds of the Senate 
of the United States, and by the judgment of nine- 
tenths of its people. No nation was ever more fortu- 
nate in war or more honorable in negotiations in peace. 
Spain is now eliminated from the problem. It remains 
to ask what we shall do now. The treaty of peace, 
honorably secured, having been ratified by the United 
States, and, as we confidently expect, shortly to be rati- 
fied in Spain, Congress will have the power, and I am 
sure the purpose, to do what in good morals is right 
and just and humane for these peoples in distant seas. 



WILLIAM Mckinley 229 

III. 

EMANCIPATORS, NOT MASTERS 

It is sometimes hard to determine what is best to 
do, and the best thing to do is oftentimes the hardest. 
The prophet of evil would do nothing because he 
flinches at sacrifice and effort, and to do nothing is easi- 
est and involves the least cost. On those who have 
things to do there rests a responsibility which is not 
on those who have no obligations as doers. If the 
doubters were in a majority there would, it is true, be 
no labor, no sacrifice, no anxiety, and no burden raised 
or carried; no contribution from our ease and purse 
and comfort to the welfare of others, or even to the 
extension of our resources to the welfare of ourselves. 
There would be ease, but alas ! there would be nothing 
done. 

But grave problems come in the life of a nation, how- 
ever much men may seek to avoid them. They come 
without our seeking; why we do not know, and it is 
not always given us to know. But the generation on 
wdiich they are forced cannot avoid the responsibility 
of honestly striving for their solution. We may not 
know precisely how to solve them, but we can make an 
honest effort to that end, and if made in conscience, 
justice, and honor it will not be in vain. 

The future of the Philippine Islands is now in the 
hands of the American people. Until the treaty was 
ratified or rejected the executive department of this 
Government could only preserve the peace and protect 
life and property. That treaty now commits the free 
and enfranchised Filipinos to the guiding hand and 
the liberalizing influences, the generous sympathies, 
the uplifting education, not of their American masters, 
but of their American emancipators. 



230 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

No one can tell today what is best for tliem or for 
us. I know no one at this hour who is wise enough or 
sufficiently informed to determine what form of gov- 
ernment will best subserve their interests and our inter- 
ests, their and our well-being. If we knew everything 
by intuition — and I sometimes think there are those 
who believe that, if we do not, they do — we should not 
need information, but unfortunately most of us are not 
in that happy state. The whole subject is now with 
Congress, and CongTCss is the voice, the conscience, 
and the judgment of the American people. Uj)on their 
judgment and conscience can we not rely? I believe 
in them. I trust them. I know of no better or safer 
human tribunal than the people. 

Until Congress shall direct otherwise it will be the 
duty of the executive to possess and hold the Philip- 
pines, giving to the people thereof peace and beneficent 
government, affording them every opportunity to prose- 
cute their lawful pursuits, encouraging them in thrift 
and industry, making them feel and know we are their 
friends, not their enemies, that their good is our aim, 
that their welfare is our welfare, but that neither their 
aspirations nor ours can be realized until our authority 
is acknowledged and unquestioned. 

That the inhabitants of the Philippines will be bene- 
fited by this Republic is my unshaken belief. That 
they will have a kindlier government under our guid- 
ance, and that they will be aided in every possible way 
to be self-respecting and self-governing people is as 
true as that the American people love liberty and have 
an abiding faith in their own Government and their 
own institutions. E^o imperial designs lurk in the 
American mind. They are alien to American senti- 
ment, thought, and purpose. Our priceless principles 
undergo no change under a tropical sun. 

If we can benefit these remote peoples, who will ob- 
ject? If in the years of the future they are established 



WILLIAM Mckinley 231 

in government under law and liberty, who will regret 
our perils and sacrifices, who will not rejoice in our 
heroism and humanity? Always perils, and always af- 
ter them safety; always darkness and clouds, but al- 
ways shining through them the light and the sunshine ; 
always cost and sacrifice, but always after them the 
fruition of liberty, education, and civilization. 

I have no light or knowledge not common to my 
countrymen. I do not prophesy. The present is all- 
absorbing to me, but I cannot bound my vision by the 
blood-stained trenches around Manila, where every red 
drop, whether from the veins of an American soldier 
or a misguided Filipino, is anguish to my heart, but 
by the broad range of future years, when the group of 
islands, under the impulse of the year just past, shall 
have become the gems and glories of those tropical 
seas, a land of plenty and of increasing possibilities, a 
people redeemed from savage indolence and habits, 
devoted to the arts of peace, in touch with the commerce 
and trade of all nations, enjoying the blessings of free- 
dom, of civil and religious liberty, of education, and 
of homes, and whose children and children's children 
shall for ages hence bless the American Republic be- 
cause it emancipated and redeemed their father-land 
and set them in the pathway of the world's best civili- 
zation. 



FEAKKLIN MacVEAGH 
THE NATION'S HEROISM 

[Delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, October 19, 1898.] 

The deeds our soldiers and sailors have done on land 
and sea will be for all time tlie pride of every American ; 
for it is true, and the judgment of the world is so judg- 
ing it, that no nation, whether it was ready-equipped 
or whether, like us, it caught up an equipment even 
as it ran to the battle, ever waged more heroic war than 
did the soldiers and sailors of our country. Hence- 
forth no man will set an American soldier or an Amer- 
ican sailor one hair's breadth below the best soldier 
and the best sailor of any period or any people. The 
Greeks at Marathon, the sound of whose glory still 
fills the ears of men; the Greeks at Thermopylae., who, 
to all noble minds, are forever defending the immortal 
pass; the sailors of Themistocles at Salamis; Napo- 
leon's Old Guard; the noble six hundred of England's 
illustrious Light Brigade, deserve all the tributes which 
history and poetry have paid them so finely and so 
gratefully. But it is our privilege to put beside their 
famous deeds the equal heroism of the Hill of San 
Juan. 

Our people welcome peace. They are celebrating 
it from end to end of the country. We rejoice that our 
soldiers and sailors are done with battle. But we never 
for a moment will forget the glories they have won; 
we never for a moment will forget the glorious deeds 
they have done. We believe in peace. We believe 

232 



FRANKLIN MACVEAGH 233 



we are appointed to achieve and to illustrate the tri- 
umphs of peace. But we now know that war hath her 
triumphs no less renowned than peace. We will not 
elorif Y war. That would disparage the peaceful genius 
of our people. But it would disparage more calam- 
itously the genius of our nation if we tailed to do jus- 
tice to the famous deeds of those who by their valor 
have raised perceptibly the rank of our country. And 
now the nation will return to the ways of peace gladly, 
- beating its swords into ploughshares and its spears into 
pruning hooks," and Cincinnatus himself, with his 
military ardor subdued to the peaceful quiet of a iar- 
mer's life, shall not excel us in the sincerity of his 

""^Ouehlfwe'not to make our power beneficent, and 
not merely make it greater? Ought we not to aspire 
to leadership in behalf of the great things we believe m 
and the great ideas we stand for? I believe the place 
of a great nation is in the great world for a great peo- 
ple iSust lead a great life. And I believe a People will 
rise higher and higher in civilization and essental hap- 
pTnessf as it grows in its desire to raise the civihzation 
Td the happTness of the world, and that it is impossi- 
ble to fitly nourish the soul of a powerful people un- 
less you give it something to do for the general prog- 

"^fr n^Uon till, I believe, be foremost in illustrat^ 
ing the duties and the ambitions-the aspirations-ot 
th! democratic era. It is taking its place m the grea 
world Kot for the sake of commerce only, not tor 
the sake of great possessions; not to aggrandize only, 
but I hope, to participate in determining the destinies 
of men. Not to quan-el, but to promote a larger and 
a more righteous peace. Not to precipitate alliances 
but to make it certain, I trust, that -y nation -h^ch 
battles for what we think is indispensable to human 
progress shall not be defeated. 



234 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

It will be a splendid spectacle, wben our powerful 
nation, growing ever more powerful, shall be standing, 
as I prophesy it will, firmly in the midst of the nations, 
not unmindful of its own vast interests, but thinking 
more highly still of justice, and of a civilization that 
shall encompass the men and women of every class and 
every clime, and eager to promote, not alone its own 
elevation, but the elevation of the world. 



[Extracts from a speech delivered in Chicago, November 1, 1898.] 

I. 

ANTI-EXPANSION BUGBEAR 

The rigid, mechanical notion that you cannot gov- 
ern a colony without making it an immediate State of 
the Union and giving all the inhabitants the immediate 
suffrage, regai-dless of the inhabitants' state of political 
development, is a mere bugbear. There has never yet 
been included in the idea of self-government the re- 
quirement that political rights and privileges should 
at all times be universally equal. Legal rights are 
equal, but political rights, even in the freest republic, 
are still governed in part by expediency. Let us not 
be over-impressed in this crisis by constitutional techni- 
calities. Any country with a written constitution will 
always be hampered in a new departure. When our 
Civil "War came on — and when it was going on — 
and afterward, when the war was over — we found our- 
selves with grave constitutional doubts and obstacles. 
In the first instance we ignored them, being forced 
to if we meant to take the great steps of limiting and 
abolishing slavery and of centralizing sufficient power 
in the Federal Government to govern a great country. 



FRANKLIN MACVEAGH 235 

and in the last instance we changed the Constitution 
to cover the new departures. 

And now it must not be an answer to the demand 
for a colonial policy that the Constitution does not con- 
template a colonial policy. Of course, the Constitu- 
tion, at the time it was made, contemplated no colonial 
policy. We were glad enough at that time to stop be- 
ing colonies ourselves. We dreamed only of the dig- 
nity of governing ourselves. But I think we all can 
see, notwithstanding our wholesome reverence for the 
fathers of the Republic, that a constitution and nation- 
al policy adopted by thirteen half-consolidated, weak, 
rescued colonies, glad to be able to call their life their 
own, could not be expected to hamper the greatest na- 
tion in the world. And our Constitution has always 
contemplated its own amendment and enlargement. 
Our Constitution is a marvel, and it is a marvel in noth- 
ing so much as in the facility of its rigid lines to yield 
continuously to growth and expansion. 

We have no colonial policy, and therefore have no 
colonial system ; but there is no reason why we should 
not have both. England has nearly every democratic 
privilege and nearly every democratic ideal and in- 
stinct that we have; and yet she has the greatest and 
best colonial system ever known. It was bad enough, 
however, before England became truly democratic. 
It became perfect only as England's democracy grew. 
Athens, long ago, was the home of democracy at the 
time when she was the great mother of wide-spread 
colonies. It is a profound error, therefore, to think dem- 
ocratic governments and democratic peoples are unfit 
for colonial empire, for the greatest colonial successes 
are the successes of democracies. And it is a profound 
error to think a colonial government must be a tyranny. 
That was Spain's theory, and her fatal error. It is 
not England's theory. It certainly would not be ours. 
Unquestionably the effect of an American colonial 



236 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

system would be to put a final stop to the old-time, ty- 
rannous, selfish, exacting theories and practices of co- 
lonial government. 

These various statements throw such light upon the 
genius and the deeper tendencies of our nation as re- 
moves, I think, the presumption that we are cut out 
and predestined for mere national isolation. They even 
go further and make good the opposite presumption: 
That as we are allied to the Anglo-Saxon race in blood, 
so we are allied in character, and have the same im- 
perative instinct of expansion and the same genius for 
government and national leadership. 

We are confronted not alone by increase of territory, 
but by an increased participation in international poli- 
tics. We are offered an increased share in the deter- 
mination of what shall be the dominant forces of the 
world; and of what shall be the world's civilization. 
Whatever the final decision of the nation through the 
people's deliberate voice and sober, second thought, 
may be as to Hawaii, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, 
this, I think, is inevitable : That we can never go back 
to our fancied isolation. We, once for all, have stepped 
out into the world. Isolation means, for instance, that 
we are not our brother's keeper; that our affair is to 
make the most of ourselves. 

]^ow we have done the very thing which upsets this 
essential theory of isolation. We have taken up Cuba's 
quarrel. We have become our brother's keeper. 
Many will always think the war with Spain was un- 
necessary, because they believe the end could have been 
obtained through diplomacy. But there are very few 
who think we are bound to sit by forever and let Spain 
misgovern her colony. What we did, however, was 
the boldest form of interference with the international 
affairs of a European power — it was doing the very 
thing, and all the thing, that the unarmed, isolated, 
mind-our-own-business policy directed we should not 



FRANKLIN MACVEAGH 237 

do, and the nation has fully accepted our extraordinary 
interference in a European nation's business as an un- 
avoidable act of imperative and exalted duty. 

It is on all acounts, therefore, inevitable that we can 
never again treat ourselves as an isolated people. A 
people with a Monroe Doctrine never intended to be 
isolated, anyway; but the war with Spain would have 
crossed the Kubicon if there had been a Rubicon left 
to cross. Henceforth it is inevitable that we shall be a 
real part of the gi'eat world, regularly taken into ac- 
count by our fellow-nations, and regularly taking our 
fellow-nations into account. 

II. 

RELATIONS WITH THE WORLD 

There are three forces driving us to expanded rela- 
tions with the worid, and we have arrived at that par- 
ticular period when these forces are becoming espe- 
cially active and dominant. The first of them is our 
trade It is inevitable that, more and more, from this 
day forth, our nation will set out to become the great- 
est trading people ever known in the world. 

No nation exists with equal facilities or equal ne- 
cessities for an unprecedented commerce. We not only 
have in soil and minerals an easy and cheap abundance, 
heretofore unknown in a like combination; not only 
has nature lavishly equipped us, but we have a people 
unprecedented in manufacturing and commercial gitts. 
We have capital that is ample and gromng, and work- 
men of practicallv a new race. We have a population 
of vast and constantly growing proportions, with scarce- 
ly a drone in the great hive. Such are the elements ot 
our facilities for foreign trade. ^ 

There will be no seas without American ships, and 



238 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

no ports without American goods carried there under 
our own flag. For, in the growing cheapness and ex- 
cellence of our manufactui'es, nothing will be more 
cheaply and excellently built than ships. And with 
an expanding commerce and a broadening merchant 
marine what are more inevitable than universal re- 
lations between our nation and the whole of mankind ? 

Another of the forces which are carrying us on to 
extended relations with the world is the force of our 
institutions and political ideas. As I said at the be- 
ginning, there is a growing issue between our institu- 
tions and ideas and those opposing institutions and 
ideas which they are steadily supplanting throughout 
the world. America especially stands for these institu- 
tions and ideas. We could not see them defeated. We 
must defend them. They have served well our pros- 
perity, our happiness, and our manhood. Henceforth 
we shall serve well their domination of the world. 

Free government, free commerce, and free men — 
those first essentials of democracy — are the greatest 
good, the greatest blessings the political world can 
know; and there is in our democratic people that in- 
herent and abiding fidelity to democratic institutions 
which has kept us faithful within our own borders, and 
is forcing us, as in this war with Spain, to be faithful 
on the larger stage of the world. Our cry for free in- 
stitutions in Cuba was the cry of democracy speaking 
through the voice of our nation. 

Democracy does not demand war, but it does de- 
mand justice. It demands freedom. It demands that 
the modern man who wants freedom shall have free- 
dom. The Monroe Doctrine was democracy's first great 
challenge. It was our service. And it is wonderful 
that any nation should have had a spirit equal to that 
great self-dedication. Any further step is but another 
stage of democratic evolution. 

Who can doubt at this day that democracy is a great 



FRANKLIN MACVEAGH 239 

militant force, or that it will tend to drive an influential 
and powerful nation like ours into complete relations 
with the world? Democracy knows, better than any 
other of humanity's great forces, that war is not the 
best agent of ideas, and the activities of democracy, or 
of democratic governments, do not mean war. Democ- 
racy can be militant without entanglements or con- 
flicts, but it cannot be militant and isolated at the same 
time. 

The third of the forces driving our nation on to 
closer relations with the world is the sense of responsi- 
bility inherent in a great, free nation and the conse- 
quent impracticability of associating pure isolation 
with national greatness and grandeur. No truly great 
nation ever did or ever will for a very long time re- 
main isolated or feed its soul on indifterence to what 
goes on outside itself. A truly great nation must be- 
come a part of the great world and take its part of the 
world's burdens; take its share of responsibility for 
the world's civilization. 

Thoughts of human progress are the necessary food 
of noble minds. Dreams of universal ameliorations 
are the nourishment of all great spirits. The isolation 
of greatness is inconceivable. Greatness is responsi- 
ble; greatness is interested in all related great things; 
greatness has relationships, responsibilities, duties, 
which are on the scale of its own proportions. And a 
really great nation must feel responsibilities to the 
great movement of mankind, as represented in the ac- 
tivities of all the world together. You might as well 
expect a great man to limit his interests to the life of 
his immediate family as to expect a great nation to 
live entirely within itself. It is against nature, against 
character, against all human impulse. Therefore this 
growing sense of necessary touch on the part of our 
great nation with the civilization and interests of man- 
kind. 



240 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

III. 

NOT MERE LAND EXPANSION 

Let it always be remembered that the new expansion 
is not mere land-extension or even trade-extension. 
Foreign trade will be more and more a part of our life, 
but foreign possessions for the most part are only a 
necessary incident of an expansion which essentially 
means a new share in the responsibilities of civiliza- 
tion, a new share in restraining and guiding the forces 
of nations, a new share in moulding the fate of men, 

I am the farthest possible from eagerness for mere 
territory. But I would not shirk a national duty to 
escape territory. I would not shirk a national duty 
to escape alien populations. I hoped we might not be 
obliged to take very much of the Philippines. But 
are we not obliged to take them all ? Can we take less 
than all of them, and do our duty? Can we take less 
than all and stand by our character? The undisguised 
truth is that no greater service to humanity at the 
present time is possible than a wholesale transfer of 
colonial possessions from mediaeval Spain to democratic 
America. Spain's mediaeval spirit has shown no dis- 
tinction between the West Indies and the East 
Indies. Her misgovernment is cosmopolitan. Her 
imperial oppression compassed Cuba and the Philip- 
pines alike and bred simultaneous revolutions. We 
only aimed to liberate Cuba, but the common misfort- 
unes of both colonies have strangely brought a com- 
mon rescue. And the fate of the Philippines, as 
the fate of Cuba, rests in our generosity — in our 
nobility. 

What shall we do? Shall we let the liberation of one 
stand, and return the other to her bonds? Shall we 
take of the Philippines only what we need, or shall we 



FRANKLIN MACVEAGH 241 

regard also tlie needs of an oppressed people? And 
what shall we answer to another demand of honor and 
wise statesmanship — that we shall not shirk, now that 
the responsibility confronts us in the Philippines, a 
share of the burden of opening and keeping open the 
avenues of oriental trade? All European nations but 
England would close against us every avenue and every 
approach. England stands alone in making and keep- 
ing open ports. She does this magnanimous work 
alone. She now hopes that with the opportunity forc- 
ing itself upon us we will help — for om- own sake, for 
her sake, and for the sake of mankind. We shall need 
open ports as much as England does, and we shall profit 
by them even more. Shall we accept all that England 
does and do nothing ourselves? Could we do that sort 
of thing and be a really great people ? 

On our own account we need a reasonable foreign 
territorial equipment for convenience in that larger 
mingling of our nation with the nations of the world, 
which I am happy to believe is to be an important ele- 
ment of a great national life, and in holding in inter- 
national Hf e the distinguished place to which her power, 
her ideas, and her responsibilities entitle her. The 
great concerns, the great issues of international life, 
cannot spare either her power, her character, or her ex- 
ample. But it is not war that calls America into the 
arena of the world. It is peace. It is not conquest, 
but co-operation. Her interest lies in civilization, not 
in chaos. She will be wherever she goes what she is at 
home, the exemplar of free government, the hope of 
social progress, and the powerful friend of the op- 
pressed. 

I covet for my country her rightful position among 
the nations. I covet for America and the American 
name the rightful respect of all the world. I want 
the world to understand our power, but 1 want it also 
to understand our character. That the power and 



242 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

the character will go hand in hand let no man doubt; 
and it is our splendid privilege to know that, however 
our national horizon may expand, it will never outgrow 
the developments of our democracy, the increase of 
our love of peace, and our expanding fidelity to the 
ideals of human progress. 



GEOEGE E. PECK 
THE YEAR OF JUBILEE 

[Delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, October 19, 1898.] 

Eellow-citizexs, this great assemblage of Ameri- 
can citizens is profoundly significant of the feeling 
which pervades American hearts, here and everywhere. 
It means something more than the mere pride of con- 
quest, for beneath the glorious exultation of victory 
is the deeper joy that with it has come, or is coming, 
a just, honorable and, therefore, a glorious peace. The 
triumphal arches that span our streets, the flags blend- 
ing their colors in pictures of infinite beauty, are more 
eloquent than words to tell us that we live in heroic 
days. 

What lessons have come to us in the brief space that 
separates us to-day from the spring months of this 
eventful year! We have learned that our own kin- 
dred can be trusted to keep unsullied their heritage 
from our fathers. We have learned that courage and 
faith can still lead men up slippery heights, if only 
their country's flag and their country's honor go with 
them. We have learned that under a tropic sun, fight- 
ing against all the elements that make up the unspeak- 
able savagery of war in the jungle, American valor 
still rests serenely upon its own undaunted heart. We 
have learned that the American soldier, reg-ular and 
volunteer — white or black — is worthy of the uniform 
he wears, and of the cause that was given into his 
keeping. 

243 



i?44 PATRIOTIC ELOQUEJ^CE 

"We have heard and all the world has heard how 
Dewev saluted the morning in the far-off Orient, and 
lighted lip the hazy waters of Manila with such a sun- 
rise as thev had never seen before. We have known 
a Fourth of July made more glorious by the tidings 
that came, telling us how Sampson and Schley and 
Clark and Evans and Philip and TTainwright and the 
brave sailors behind the gims and on the decks and 
down where the furnace-tii'es were tiereely burning, 
fell upon the leviathans of Spain and sent them to 
their doom almost in the twinkling of an eye. The 
army and the na%*y, two arms of that mighty giant, 
the American nation, have in equal measure struck 
unceasingly for the honor of their coimtry and for the 
cause of a common humanitVj which in its highest sense 
means tiniversal justice. 

Six months ago we welcomed war in the thoughtful, 
solemn spirit which befits an appeal to the sword. To- 
day we welcome peace and all its blessings. We have 
given good hves for it, and every life makes it more 
precious. Victory has come to us in fullest measure. 
We have won ships and cannon, and forts and arsenals. 
Cities have opened their gates, and islands in both 
hemispheres have welcomed the arms and the institu- 
tions of freedom. But the greatest prize we have won. 
in its consequences to us as a people, is the supreme 
victory which Xorth and South have won over each 
other. Long ago all sensible and patriotic people in 
both sections knew that the hour had come. To-day 
we hail it in the assured faith that, henceforth, we 
march together to the same music, under the same 
flag and to the same destiny. Verily, this is the year 
of jubUee. 



GEOEGE E. PECK 245 



[ExtractB from a speech delirered at the Peace Jubilee, Atlanta, 
Ga., December 15, 1696.] 



TEE XEW UNION 

A STEAyGEE from another land, witnessing this 
brilliant festival, might "vrell inquire, '' Do tou cele- 
brate victory or peace i '"' The prompt, emphatic an- 
swer vrould be, *' Both." One preceded the other but a 
little, as the flush of dawn heralds the full brightness 
of the day, but both are ours, and nobly won. In all 
these joyous observances we are under an influence 
which is not mere exultation, but what Matthew Ar- 
nold might have called a sweet reasonableness. The 
nation, looking into its own heart, weighing its own 
motives, subjecting itself to a rigorous introspection, 
is content. The task it assumed when the year was 
young has been finished, though the year is not yet 
ended. Why should we not rejoice? Human nature 
must needs have some channel in which its currents 
may flow. Here we bring memories and hopes ; here we 
recall the high ideals which led us through the sum- 
mer days, and here a new nation finds a fitting shrine. 

This is Atlanta, that fated citadel which once guard- 
ed the gate-way of the South: Atlanta, the marvellous 
child of faith and enterprise, reading with clear eyes 
the destiny that waits on opportunity: Atlanta, " the 
expectancy and rose of the fair State."' To you war 
is something more than an artist's sketch. Its argu- 
ment has held you in it« grasp: its sorrows have en- 
tered your hearts and homes and left them desolate. 
Yonder is Peach Tree, where Hood, great in misfort- 
ime and superb in defeat, led his heroic columns, like 
another Xey, in an onset which was the more glorious 



246 PATRIOTIC ELOQUEiq^CE 

because it was hopeless. Yonder once grew the oaks 
and pines under whose sheltering branches McPherson 
fell, our best beloved, our Lycidas, " dead ere his 
prime." Verily, we are on historic gTOund. Here our 
annals grow tired of common things and touch the 
highest themes. They make classic not simply that 
which is venerable, but those highest of human at- 
tributes — courage, constancy and faith. Here we 
know, for a certainty, that a power beyond our con- 
trolling, an insistence outside of our own little plans, 
has made us one. 

I am the less reluctant to speak of these things be- 
cause I know you give back thought for thought, greet- 
ing for greeting and heart for heart. iSTot long ago, 
at the great jubilee in Chicago, two distinguished citi- 
zens of Georgia brought us messages that will not be 
forgotten. Listening to the eloquent words of Judge 
Speer and Clark Howell we felt, as we had never felt 
before, that American patriotism is, and must ever be, 
national. They made us know that it is not an idle 
sentiment, but a pervasive force, which is, in Shake- 
speare's exquisite phrase, " as broad and general as the 
casing air." 

It was my fortune to be born in a harsher clime than 
this, where ice and snow are yearly guests, often out- 
staying their welcome. But gentlemen, the North Star 
is not so cold as some have thought, and its unchanging 
light from the days of Ulysses has guided mariners 
through perilous seas to sweet home-ports. There are 
legends and sagas that tell how, centuries ago, the 
Norsemen sailed on voyages to the Atlantic's western 
rim. We who are of New England origin are perhaps 
of kin to them, for in our veins the dominant blood 
flows from the north. And yet I do not think it counts 
for much whether we are Norman or Saxon or Dane. 
The United States has little need of ancestry; it is in 
the highest sense its own progenitor and its own suf- 



GEOEGE R. PECK 247 

ficient reason. If we sing tlie same battle-hymns and 
by the fireside recite the same ballads, the question of 
lineage need not trouble us. Have you not read how 
EngHshmen fought against each other for red roses 
and white, and again, how some stood for the king and 
some for the parliament; but when they looked back 
through battle-mists to the days of old they all saw — 
Agincourt? So, too there was a time when some who 
are here to-night did not love each other overmuch, 
and yet, when the stress was fiercest and the fires seemed 
ready to consume, neither side gave up its memory 
of Lexington and Yorktown. Tradition, language, 
literature, common hopes and common interests make 
a nation, and these are a thousand times stronger than 
the sanctions of written charters or the authority of 
blood. 

The American flag is beautiful in itself, but its colors 
inspire only as they symbolize the majesty, the power, 
and the honor of the American people. Think of the 
past year! North and South lose their significance 
when Manila and Santiago tell their story. Who cares 
from whence came the heroes who led and the heroes 
who followed ? Alabama shall not claim Wheeler nor 
Vermont assert that Dewey is hers alone. What is 
Illinois? What is Georgia? They are great, but only 
great because they are parts of a greater nation. 



II. 

SOVEREIGNTY FOLLOWS THE FLAG 

The Spanish War was not the war of any State, but 
of all the States ; it was the war of a nation strong in 
its high sense of right, and strong because it held in its 
keeping the cause of justice and humanity. American 
sovereignty follows the American flag. If it leads 



248 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

across western seas to the east, or floats over the Oregon 
washing the foam of two oceans from her prow as she 
speeds onward to the fight, the national spirit sails with 
it to the uttermost. To-day the J^ew Union faces new 
duties. Wars are never exactly what men foresee. 
The dominion of the Republic has been enormously 
enlarged, but it was not the lust of conquest that 
brought it about. It was the logic of events that were 
greater than men. We may trust the United States, 
and we may trust the deliberate judgment of its peo- 
ple. Thinking of all that is past, considering the pres- 
ent and its problems, our look must yet be forward, as 
is the habit of brave men and of statesmen who are 
fit to rule. Hamlet is not the true type of American 
character. In the high policy and conduct of nations 
what they may means often what they must. 

Speaking in the presence of the President of the 
United States, whom we honor for what he is and for 
what he represents, we all unite in acknowledging his 
sincerity of purpose, his wisdom, and the high patriot- 
ism which by day and by night has guided him in dif- 
ficult situations and unexpected emergencies. I know 
of no duty which can rest more solemnly upon the 
American people than that of sustaining and strength- 
ening him in the great responsibilities he is bearing 
so bravely and so well. Statesmanship does not require 
absolute foreknowledge, but it does require the rare 
ability to meet conditions as they arise. When Dewey 
sailed into the bay he readjusted in an hour the policies 
and aims of a century. He changed the balance and 
equilibrium of nations, and served notice, with every 
shot he fired, that henceforth the United States must 
be counted. 

We have entered new fields, as advancing nations al- 
ways do; we have assumed new duties, as living na- 
tions always must. It may, indeed, be true that our 
fathers did not write out on parchment what must be 



GEORGE R. PECK 249 

done if, by the fortunes of war, our flag should be car- 
ried to islands and seas remote. But, gentlemen, the 
flag cannot come down. The institutions and the pol- 
ity of a free republic are equal to new conditions, or 
they are worthless. A nation that cannot keep pace 
with what its own arms have accomplished is already 
catalogued with the incapable and the degenerate. 
The New Union, which war has welded more firmly 
together, suimnons us and leads us forward. It does 
not in\dte responsibilities nor shrink from them. His- 
tory has been busy in these last eventful months, inter- 
fusing all the elements of om' national life, so that 
the parts forget that they are parts, and remember 
only an indissoluble, indi^asible, indestructible Union. 



REDFIELD PROCTOR 

[Extracts from a speech delivered in the Senate of the United 
States, March 17, 1898.] 

I. 

TEE CONDITION OF CUBA 

Havana, the great city and capital of the island, 
is, in the eyes of the Spaniards and many Cubans, all 
Cuba, as much as Paris is France. Everything seems 
to go on much as usual there. Quiet prevails, and ex- 
cept for the frequent squads of soldiers marching to 
guard and police-duty and their abounding presence 
in all public places, one sees few signs of war. Out- 
side Havana all is changed. It is not peace nor is it 
war. It is desolation and distress, misery and starva- 
tion. Every town and village is surrounded by a 
" trocha " (trench), a sort of rifle-pit. These trochas 
have at every corner and at frequent intervals along 
the sides what are there called forts, but which are 
really small block-houses, many of them more like large 
sentry-boxes, loopholed for musketry, and with a guard 
of from two to ten soldiers in each. The purpose of 
these trochas is to keep the reconcentrados in as well 
as to keep the insurgents out. From all the surround- 
ing country the people have been driven into these 
fortified towns, which are virtually prison-yards, and 
held there to subsist as they can. When they reached 
the towns, they were allowed to build huts of palm 

250 



EEDFIELD PROCTOR 251 

leaves in tlie suburbs and vacant places within the 
trochas, and left to live, if they could. 

Their huts are about 10 by 15 feet in size, and for 
want of space are usually crowded together very close- 
ly. They have no floor but the ground, no furniture, 
and, after a year's wear, but little clothing except such 
stray substitutes as they can extemporize; and with 
large families, or more than one, in this little space, 
the commonest sanitary provisions are impossible. 
Conditions are unmentionable in this respect. Tom 
from their homes, with foul earth, foul air, foul water 
and foul food, what wonder that one-half have died 
and that one-quarter of the living are so diseased that 
they cannot be saved. Dropsy is a common disorder 
resulting from these conditions. Little children are 
still walking about with arms and chest terribly ema- 
ciated, eyes swollen and abdomen bloated to three 
times the natural size. Physicians say these cases are 
hopeless. 

Deaths in the streets have not been uncommon. I 
was told by one of our consuls that men have been 
found dead about the markets in the morning, where 
they had crawled, hoping to get some stray bits of 
food from the early hucksters, and that there had been 
cases where they had dropped dead inside the market 
surrounded by food. Before Weyler's order, these 
people were independent and self-supporting. They 
are not beggars even now. There are plenty of pro- 
fessional beggars in every town among the regular 
residents, but these country people, the reconcentrados, 
have not learned the art. Karely is a hand held out 
to you for alms when you are among their huts, but the 
sight of them makes an appeal stronger than words. 

Others have described their condition far better than 
I can. It is not within the narrow limits of my vo- 
cabulary to portray it. I went to Cuba with a strong 
conviction that the picture had been overdrawn; that 



252 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

a few cases of starvation and suffering had inspired 
and stimulated the press correspondents, and that they 
had given free play to a strong natiu-al and highly 
cultivated imagination. Before starting I received 
through the mail a leaflet published by the Christian 
Heraldy with cuts of some of the sick and starving re- 
concentrados, and took it with me, thinking these must 
be rare specimens, got up to make the worst possible 
showing. I saw plenty as bad and worse; many that 
should not be photographed and shown. 

I could not believe that out of a population of one 
million six hundred thousand, two hundred thousand 
had died within these Spanish forts, practically prison- 
walls, within a few months past from actual starvation 
and diseases caused by insufficient and improper food. 
My inquiries were entirely outside of sensational 
sources. They were made of our medical officers, of 
our consuls, of city mayors, of relief committees, of 
leading merchants, bankers, and lawyers. Several of 
my informants were Spanish-bom, but every time the 
answer was that the case had not been overstated. 
What I saw I cannot tell so that others can see it. It 
must be seen with one's own eyes to be realized. 

I visited the warehouse where the supplies are re- 
ceived and distributed; saw the methods of checking; 
visited the hospitals established or organized and sup- 
plied by Miss Barton; saw the food distributions in 
several cities and towns, and everything seems to me to 
be conducted in the best manner possible. The Ameri- 
can people may be assured that their bounty ^vdll reach 
the sufferers with the least possible cost and in the best 
manner in every respect. If our people could see a 
small fraction of the need, they would pour more 
" freely from their liberal stores " than ever before for 
any cause. When will the need for this help end ? JSTot 
until peace comes and the reconcentrados can go back 
to the country, rebuild their homes, reclaim their till- 



KEDFIELD PKOCTOR 253 

lage plots, which quickly run up to brush in that won- 
derful soil and clime, and until they can be free from 
danger of molestation in so doing. Until then the 
American people must in the main care for them. 

I do not impugn General Blanco's motives, and be- 
lieve him to be an amiable gentleman, and that he 
would be glad to relieve the condition of the reconcen- 
trados if he could do so without loss of any military 
advantage ; but he knows that all Cubans are insurgents 
at heart, and none now under military control will be 
allowed to go out from under it. 

I wish I might speak of the country — of its surpass- 
ing richness. I have never seen one to compare with it. 
On this point I agi'ee with Columbus, that this is the 
" most rich and beautiful that ever human eye beheld," 
and believe everyone between his time and mine must 
be of the same opinion. 



n. 

CUBAN PARTIES 

The dividing lines between parties are the straight- 
est and clearest cut that have ever come to my knowl- 
edge. The division in our war was by no means so 
clearly defined. It is Cuban against Spaniard. It is 
practically the entire Cuban population on one side and 
the Spanish army and Spanish citizens on the other. 
I do not count the autonomists in this division, as they 
are far too inconsiderable in numbers to be worth 
counting. General Blanco filled the civil offices with 
men who had been autonomists, and were still classed 
as such. But the march of events had satisfied most of 
them that the chance for autonomy came too late. 

It falls as talk of compromise would have fallen the 
last year or two of our war. If it succeeds, it can only 



254 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

be by armed force, bj the triumph of the Spanish army, 
and the success of Spanish arms would be easier by 
Weyler's policy and method, for in that the Spanish 
army and jDCople believe. There is no doubt that Gen- 
eral Blanco is acting in entire good faith; that he de- 
sires to give the Cubans a fair measure of autonomy, as 
Campos did at the close of the ten-year war. He has, 
of course, a few personal followers, but the anny and 
the Spanish citizens do not want genuine autonomy, 
for that means government by the Cuban people. And 
it is not strange that the Cubans say it comes too late. 

I have never had any communication, direct or in- 
direct, with the Cuban Junta in this country or with 
any of its members, nor did I have with any of the 
juntas which exist in every city and large town in 
Cuba. None of the calls I made were upon parties of 
whose s^aiipathies I had the least knowledge except 
that I knew some of them were classed as autonomists. 

Most of my informants were business men, who had 
taken no sides and rarely expressed themselves. I had 
no means of guessing in advance what their answers 
would be, and was in most eases greatly surprised at 
their frankness. I inquired in regard to autonomy of 
men of wealth and men prominent in business, several 
of them known as autonomists, and several of them 
telling me that they were still believers in autonomy if 
practicable, but without exception they replied that 
it was " too late " for that. Some favored a United 
States protectorate, some annexation, some free Cuba ; 
not one has been counted favoring the insuiTection at 
first. They were business men and wanted peace, but 
said it was too late for peiice under Spanish sovereignity. 
They characterized Weyler's order in far stronger 
terms than I can. I could not but conclude that you 
do not have to scratch an autonomist very deep to find a 
Cuban. 

I have endeavored to state in not intemperate mood 



REDFIELD PROCTOR 255 

what I saw and heard, and to make no argument 
thereon, but leave everyone to draw his own conclu- 
sions. To me the strongest appeal is not the barbarity 
practised by Weyler nor the loss of the Maine, if 
our worst fears should prove true, terrible as are both 
of these incidents, but the spectacle of a million and 
a half of people, the entire native population of Cuba, 
struggling for freedom and deliverance from the worst 
misgovemment of which I ever had knowledge. But 
whether our action ought to be influenced by any one 
or all these things, and, if so, how far, is another 
question. 

I am not in favor of annexation; not because I would 
apprehend any particular trouble from it, but because 
it is not wise policy to take in any people of foreign 
tongue and training, and without any strong guiding 
American element. The fear that, if free, the people of 
Cuba would be revolutionary is not so well founded as 
has been supposed, and the conditions for good self- 
government are far more favorable. The large num- 
ber of educated and patriotic men, the great sacrifices 
they have endiu-ed, the peaceable temperament of the 
people, whites and blacks, the wonderful prosperity 
that would surely come with peace and good home rule, 
the large influx of American and English immigra- 
tion and money, would all be strong factors for stable 
institutions. 

But it is not my purpose at this time, nor do I con- 
sider it my province, to suggest any plan. I merely 
speak of the symptoms as I saw them, but do not un- 
dertake to prescribe. Such remedial steps as may be 
required may safely be left to an American President 
and the American people. 



WHITELAW KEID 
PURPORT OF THE TREATY 

[From a speech delivered at the Lincoln dinner of the Marquette 
Club, Chicago, February 13, 1899. J 

Beyond the Alleghenies the American voice rings 
clear and true. It does not sound, here in Chicago, as 
if you favored the pursuit of partisan aims in great 
questions of foreign policy ; or division among our own 
people in the face of insurgent guns turned upon our 
soldiers on distant fields to which we sent them. We 
are all here, it would seem, to stand by the peace that 
has been secured, even if we have to fight for it. 

Neither has any reproach come from Chicago to the 
Peace Commissioners, because when intrusted with 
your interests in a gTeat negotiation in a foreig-n capi- 
tal, they made a settlement on terms too favorable to 
their own country — because in bringing home peace 
with honor they also brought home more property than 
some of our people wanted! When that reproach has 
been urged elsewhere, it has recalled the familiar de- 
fence against a similar complaint in an old political 
contest. There might, it was said, be some serious dis- 
advantages about a surplus in the national treasury; 
but at any rate it was easier to deal with a surplus than 
with a deficit ! If we have brought back too much, that 
is only a question for Congress and our own people. 
If we had brought back too little, it might have been 
again a question for the army and the navy. 

Would you have had your agents in Paris, the guar- 
356 



WHITELAW EEID 257 

dians of jour material interests, throw away all chance 
for indemnity for a war that began with the treacherous 
murder of two hundred and sixty-six American sailors 
on the Maine, and had cost your treasury during the 
year over $240,000,000? Would you have had them 
throw away a magnificent foothold for the trade of the 
farther East, which the fortune of war had placed in 
your hand ; throw away a whole archipelago of bound- 
less possibilities, economic and strategic; throw away 
this opportunity of centuries for your country? Would 
you have had them, on their own responsibility, then 
and there decide this question for all time, and abso- 
lutely refuse to reserve it for the decision of Congress, 
and of the American people, to whom that decision 
belongs, and who have the right to an opportunity first 
for its deliberate consideration? 

They protected what was gained in the war from 
adroit efforts to put it all at risk again, through an un- 
timely appeal to the noble principle of arbitration. 
They held — and I am sure the best friends of the prin- 
ciple will thank them for holding — that an honest 
resort to arbitration must come before war, to avert its 
horrors, not after war, to escape its consequences. They 
neither neglected nor feared the duty of caring for the 
material interests of their owm country — the duty of 
grasping the enormous possibilities upon which we had 
stumbled, for sharing in the awakening and develop- 
ment of the farther East. That way lies now the best 
hope of American commerce. There you may com- 
mand a natural rather than an artificial trade — a trade 
which pushes itself instead of needing to be pushed ; a 
trade with people who can send you things you want 
and cannot produce, and take from you in return things 
they want and cannot produce. 

Are we to lose all this through a mushy sentimental- 
ity, characteristic neither of practical nor of responsible 
people — alike un-American and un-Christian, since it 



258 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

would humiliate us by showing lack of nerve to hold 
what we are entitled to, and incriminate us by entailing 
endless bloodshed and anarchy on a people whom we 
have already stripped of the only government they 
have known for three hundred years, and whom we 
should thus abandon to civil war and foreign spoliation ? 

What are the obvious duties of the hour? 

First, hold what you are entitled to. If you are 
ever to part with it, wait at least till you have exam- 
ined it and found out that you have no use for it. 
Before yielding to temporary difficulties at the outset, 
take time to be quite sure you are ready now to aban- 
don your chance for a commanding position in the 
trade of China, in the commercial control of the Pacific 
Ocean, and in the richest conmiercial development of 
the approaching century. 

Resist the crazy extension of the doctrine that gov- 
ernment derives its just powers from the consent of the 
governed to an extreme never imagined by the men 
who framed it, and never for one moment acted upon 
in their own practice. Why should we force Jeffer- 
son's language to a meaning Jefferson himself never 
gave it in dealing with the people of Louisiana, or An- 
drew Jackson in dealing with those of South Carolina, 
or Abraham Lincoln with the seceding States, or any 
responsible statesman of the country at any period 
in its history in dealing with Indians or New Mexicans 
or Calif ornians or Russians? What have the Tagalos 
done for us that we should treat them better and put 
them on a plane higher than any of these? 

Next, resist admission of any of our new possessions 
as States, or their organization on a plan designed to 
prepare them for admission. Stand firm for the pres- 
ent American ITnion of sister States, undiluted by any- 
body's archipelagoes. If there is real reason to fear 
that the American people cannot restrain themselves 
from throwing open the doors of our Senate and House 



WHITELAW REID 259 

of Representatives to such sister states as Luzon or the 
Visayas, or the Sandwich Islands, or Porto Kico, or 
even Cuba, then the sooner we beg some civihzed na- 
tion, with more common-sense and less sentimentality 
and gush, to take them off our hands, the better. 

If we are unequal to a manly and intelligent dis- 
charge of the responsibilities the war has entailed, then 
let us confess our unworthiness, and beg Japan to as- 
sume the duties of a civilized Christian state toward the 
Philippines, while England can extend the same relief 
to us in Cuba and Porto Eico. But having thus igno- 
miniously shirked the position demanded by our bel- 
ligerency and our success, let us never again presume 
to take a place among the self-respecting and respon- 
sible nations of the earth that can ever lay us liable 
to another such task. If called to it, let us at the out- 
set admit our unfitness, withdraw w^ithin our own 
borders and leave these larger duties of the world to 
less incapable races or less craven rulers. 

Far other and brighter are the hopes I have ventured 
to cherish concerning the course of the American 
people in this emergency. I have thought there was 
encouragement for nations as well as for individuals in 
remembering the sobering and steadying influence of 
great responsibilities suddenly devolved. When Prince 
Hal comes to the crown he is apt to abjure Falstaff. 
When we come to the critical and dangerous work of 
controlling turbulent, semi-tropical dependencies, the 
agents w^e choose cannot be the ward-heelers of the 
local bosses. Now, if ever, is the time to rally the 
brain and conscience of the American people to a real 
elevation and purification of their civil service, to the 
most exalted standards of public duty, to the most 
strenuous and united effort of all men of good-will, to 
make our Government worthy of the new and great 
responsibilities which the Providence of God, rather 
than any purpose of man has imposed upon it. 



260 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

THE PATH OF DUTY 

[From an address delivered at Miami University, June 15, 1899..] 

If we did not want responsibilities we ought not 
to have gone to war, and I, for one, would have been 
content. But, having chosen to go to war, and having 
been speedily and overwhelmingly successful, we 
should be ashamed even to think of running away from 
what inexorably followed. Dewey went to Manila and 
sunk the Spanish fleet. We thus broke down Spanish 
means for controlling the Philippines, and were left 
with the Spanish responsibility for maintaining order 
there — responsibility to all the world, German, Eng- 
lish, Japanese, Russian and the rest, in one of the great 
centres and highways of the world's commerce. 

But why not turn over that commercial centre and 
the island on which it is situated to the Tagalogs? To 
be sure, under three hundred years of Spanish rule 
barbarism on Luzon had so far disappeared that this 
commercial metropolis, as large as San Francisco or 
Cincinnati, had sprung up, and come to be thronged 
by traders and travellers of all nations. ISTow it is 
calmly suggested that we might have turned it over to 
one semi-civilized tribe, absolutely without experience 
in governing even itself, much less a great commimity 
of foreigners — probably in a minority on the island, 
and at war with its other inhabitants — a tribe which has 
given the measure of its fitness for being charged with 
the rights of foreigners and the care of a commercial 
metropolis by the violation of flags of truce, treachery 
to the living and mutilation of the dead, which have 
marked its recent wanton rising against the power that 
was trying to help it! 

Some exclaim that Americans are incapable of col- 
onizing or of managing colonies; that there is some- 



WHITELAW REID 261 

thing in our national character or institutions that 
wholly unfits us for the work. Yet the most successful 
colonies in the whole world were the thirteen original 
colonies on our Atlantic coast ; and the most successful 
colonists were our own grandfathers ! Have the grand- 
sons so degenerated that they are incapable of coloniz- 
ing at all, or of managing colonies? Who says so? Is 
it anyone with the glorious history of this continental 
colonization bred in his bone and leaping in his blood? 
Or is it some refugee from a foreign country he was 
discontented with, who now finds pleasure in disparag- 
ing the capacity of the new country he came to, while 
he has neither caught its spirit nor gi'asped the meaning 
of its history ? 

Some bewail the alleged fact that our system gives 
us no fitness for managing colonies or dependencies. 
Has our system been found weaker, then, than other 
forms of government, less adaptable to emergencies, 
and with people less fit to cope with them? Is the difii- 
culty inherent, or is it possible that the emergency may 
show, as emergencies have shown before, that whatever 
task intelligence, energy, and courage can surmount 
the American people and their Government can rise 
to? 

It is said we cannot colonize the tropics, because our 
people cannot labor there. Perhaps not, especially if 
they refuse to obey the prudent precautions which 
centuries of experience have enjoined upon others. 
But what, then, are we going to do with Porto Rico? 
How soon are our people going to flee from Arizona? 
And why is life impossible to Americans in Manila and 
Cebu and Iloilo, but attractive to the throngs of Euro- 
peans who have built up those cities? Can we mine all 
over the world, from South Africa to the Klondike, 
but not in Palawan? Can we grow tobacco in Cuba, 
but not in Cebu; or rice in Louisiana, but not in 
Luzon? 



262 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

It is said we are pursuing a fine method for restoring 
order, in prolonging the war we began for humanity by 
forcing liberty and justice on an unwilling people at 
the point of the bayonet. The sneer is cheap. How 
else have these blessings been generally diffused? How 
often in the history of the world has barbarism been re- 
placed by civilization without bloodshed? How were 
our own liberty and justice established and diffused on 
this continent? Would the process have been less 
bloody if a part of our own people had noisily taken 
the side of the English, the Mexican, or the savage, 
and protested against " extreme measures? " 

Some say a war to extend freedom in Cuba or else- 
where is right, and therefore, our duty; but the war 
in the Philippines now is purely selfish, and therefore, 
all wrong. The statement is inaccurate ; it is a war we 
are in duty bound to wage, at any rate till order is re- 
stored. Suppose it to be merely a war in defence of 
our own just rights and interests. Since when did 
such a war become wrong? Is our national motto 
to be "Quixotic on the one hand; Chinese on the 
other? " 

How much better it would have been, say others, to 
mind our own business. No doubt ; but if we were to 
begin crying over spilt milk in that way, the place to 
begin was where the milk was spilled — in the Congress 
that resolved upon war with Spain. Since that con- 
gressional action we have been minding what it made 
our own business quite diligently, and an essential part 
of our business now is the responsibility for our own 
past acts, whether in Havana or Manila. 

Some say we began the war for humanity, and are, 
therefore, disgraced by coming out of it \^nth increased 
territory. Then a penalty must always be imposed 
upon a victorious nation for presuming to do a good act. 
The only nation to be exempt from such a penalty upon 
success is to be the nation that was in the wrong! It is 



WHITELAW KEID 263 

to have a premium; for it is thus relieved from the pen- 
alty which modem practice in the interest of civiliza- 
tion requires, the payment of an indemnity for the cost 
of an unjust war. Furthermore, the representatives of 
the nation that does a good act are thus bomid to reject 
any opportunity for lightening the national load it en- 
tails. They must leave the full burden upon their 
country, to be dealt with in due time by the individual 
taxpayer! 

Again, we have superfine discussions of what the 
United States " stands for." It does not stand, we are 
told, for foreign conquest, or for colonies, or dependen- 
cies, or other extensions of its power and influence. It 
stands for the development of the individual man. 
There is a germ of a great truth in this, but the develop- 
ment of the truth is lost sight of. Individual initia- 
tive is a good thing, and our institutions do develop 
it — and its consequences! There is a species of indi- 
vidualism, too, about a bull-dog. When he takes hold 
he holds on. It may as well be noticed by the objectors 
that that is a characteristic much appreciated by the 
American people. They, too, hold on. They remem- 
ber besides a pregnant phrase of their fathers, who 
" ordained this Constitution," among other things, " to 
promote the general welfare." That is a thing for 
which " this Government stands," also ; and woe to 
the public servant who rejects brilliant opportunities to 
promote it — on the Pacific Ocean as well as the 
Atlantic — by commerce as well as by agriculture or 
manufactures. 

Again, it is said our continent is more than enough 
for all our needs ; and our extensions should stop at the 
Pacific. What is this but proposing such a policy of 
self-sufficient isolation as we are accustomed to repro- 
bate in China — planning to develop only on the soil on 
which we stand, and expecting the rest of the world to 
protect our trade if we have any? Can a nation with 



264 PATKIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

safety set Chinese limits to its growth? When a tree 
stops growing our foresters tell us it is ripe for the axe. 
When a man stops in his physical and intellectual 
growth he begins to decay. When a business stops 
gTowing it is in danger of decline. When a nation 
stops growing it has passed the meridian of its course, 
and its shadows fall eastward. Provincial isolation is 
gone, and provincial habits of thought will go. There 
is a larger interest in what other lands have to show and 
teach; a larger confidence in our own; a higher resolve 
that it shall do its whole duty to mankind, moral as 
well as material, international as well as national, in 
such fashion as becomes time's latest offspring and its 
greatest. We are grown more nearly citizens of the 
world. 

This new knowledge, these new duties and interests 
must have two effects — they must extend our power, 
influence, and trade, and they must elevate the public 
service. Every returning soldier or traveller tells the 
same story — that the very name American has taken 
a new significance throughout the Orient. The na- 
tional prestige is enormously increased, and trade fol- 
lows prestige. ISTot within a century, not during our 
whole history, has such a field opened for our reaping. 
Planted directly in front of the Chinese colossus, on a 
great territory of our own, we have the fii-st and best 
chance to profit by his awakening. Commanding both 
sides of the Pacific, and the available coal supplies on 
each, we command the ocean that, according to the old 
prediction, is to bear the bulk of the world's commerce 
in the twentieth century. Our glorious land betw^een 
the Sierras and the sea may then become as busy a hive 
as iSTew England itself, and the whole continent must 
take fresh life from the generous blood of this natural 
and necessary commerce between people of different 
climates and zones, who gladly buy from each other 
what they do not produce themselves. 



WHITELAW REID 265 

Hand in hand with these benefits to ourselves, which 
it is the duty of public servants to secure, go benefits to 
our new wards and benefits to mankind. There, then, 
is what the United States is to " stand for " in all the 
resplendent future — the rights and interests of its own 
Government; the general welfare of its own people; 
the extension of ordered liberty in the dark places of 
the earth; the spread of civilization and religion, and 
a consequent increase in the sum of human happiness 
in the world. 



THE GENERAL WELFARE 

[From an address delivered at Princeton University, October 21, 

1899.] 

We are in the Philippines, as we are in the West 
Indies, because duty sent us; and we shall remain be- 
cause we have no right to run away from our duty, 
even if it does involve far more trouble than we fore- 
saw when we plunged into the war that entailed it. 
The call to duty, when once plainly understood, is a 
call Americans never fail to answer; while to calls of 
interest they have often shown themselves incredulous 
or contemptuous. 

The Constitution we revere was ordained " to pro- 
mote the general welfare," and he is untrue to its pur- 
pose who squanders opportunities. Never before have 
they been showered upon us in such bewildering pro- 
fusion. Are the American people to rise to the occa- 
sion; are they to be as great as their country? Or shall 
the historian record that at this unexampled crisis they 
were controlled by timid ideas and short-sighted views, 
and so proved unequal to the duty and the opportunity 
which unforeseen circumstances brought to their doors? 
The two richest archipelagoes in the world are prac- 



266 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

tically at our disposal. The greatest ocean on the globe 
has been put in our hands, the ocean that is to bear the 
commerce of the twentieth century. In the face of this 
prospect shall we prefer, with the teeming population 
that century is to bring to us, to remain a " hibernating 
nation, living off its own fat — a hermit nation ? " 

Are we to be discouraged by the cry that the new 
possessions are worthless? Not while we remember 
how often and under what circumstances we have heard 
that cry before. Half the public men of the period 
denounced Louisiana as worthless. Eminent states- 
men made merry in Congress over the idea that Oregon 
or Washington could be of any use. Daniel Webster, 
in the most solemn and authoritative tones Massachu- 
setts has ever employed, assured his fellow-Senators 
that in his judgment California was not worth a dollar. 
Nobody doubts the advantage our dealers have de- 
rived in the promotion of trade, from controlling polit- 
ical relations and frequent intercourse. There are 
those who deny that " trade follows the flag," but 
even they admit that it leaves, if the flag does. And 
independent of these advantages, and reckoning by 
mere distance, we still have the better of any Euro- 
pean rivals in the Philippines. Now, assume that the 
Filipino would have far fewer wants than the Kanaka 
or his coolie laborer, and would do far less work for the 
means to gratify them. Admit, too, that, with " the 
open door," our political relations and frequent inter- 
course could have barely a fifth or a sixth of the effect 
there they have had in the Sandwich Islands. Roughly 
cast up even that result, and say whether it is a value 
which the United States should throw away as not 
worth considering! 

And tlie gTcatest remains behind. For the trade in 
the Philippines will be but a drop in the bucket com- 
pared to that of China, for which they give us an un- 
approachable foothold. But let it never be forgotten 



WHITELAW KEID 267 

that the confidence of Orientals goes only to those 
whom they recognize as strong enough and determined 
enough always to hold their own and protect their 
rights ! The worst possible introduction for the Asiatic 
trade would be an irresolute abandonment of our foot- 
hold because it was too much trouble to keep, or be- 
cause some Malay and haK-breed insurgents said they 
wanted us away. 

Have you considered for whom we hold these ad- 
vantages in trust? They belong not merely to the 
seventy-five millions now within our borders, but to 
all who are to extend the fortunes and preserve the 
virtues of the Kepublic in the coming century. Their 
number cannot increase in the startling ratio this cen- 
tury has shown — if they did the population of the 
United States a hundred years hence would be over 
twelve hundred millions. That ratio is impossible, but 
nobody gives reasons why we should not increase half 
as fast. Suppose we do actually increase only one- 
fourth as fast in the twentieth century as in the nine- 
teenth. To what height would not the three hundred 
millions of Americans, whom even that ratio foretells, 
bear up the seething industrial activities of the Conti- 
nent! To what corner of the world would they not 
need to carry their commerce? What demands on 
tropical productions would they not make? What 
outlets for their adventurous youth would they not 
require ? 

With such a prospect before us, who thinks that we 
should shrink from an enlargement of our national 
sphere because of the limitations that bound, or the 
dangers that threatened, before railroads, before ocean 
steamers, before telegraphs and ocean cables, before the 
enormous development of our manufactures, and the 
training of executive and organizing faculties in our 
people on a constantly increasing scale for generations. 
Does the prospect alarm? Is it said that our nation is 



2()8 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

already too great ; that all its magnificent growth only 
adds to the conflicting interests that must eventually 
tear it asunder? What cement, then, like that of a great 
common interest beyond om- borders, that touches not 
merely the conscience, but the pocket and the pride of 
all alike, and marshals us in the face of the world, 
standing for our own? 

What, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter? 
Hold fast! Stand firm in the place where Providence 
has put you, and do the duty a just responsibility for 
your own past acts imposes. Support the army you 
sent there. Stop wasting valuable strength by showing 
how things might be different if something different 
had been done a year and a half ago. Use the educated 
thought of the country for shaping best its course now, 
instead of chiefly finding fault with its history. Bring 
the best hope of the future, the colleges and the genera- 
tion they are training, to exert the greatest influence 
and accomplish the most good by working intelligently 
in line with the patriotic aspirations and the inevitable 
tendencies of the American people, rather than against 
them. Unite the efforts of all men of good-will to 
make the appointment of any person to these new and 
strange duties beyond seas impossible save for proved 
fitness, and his removal impossible save for cause, 
Eally the colleges and the churches, and all they influ- 
ence, the brain and the conscience of the country, in 
a combined and irresistible demand for a genuine 
trained and pure civil service in our new possessions, 
that shall put to shame our detractors, and show to the 
world the Americans of this generation equal still to 
the work of civilization and colonization, and leading 
the development of the coming century as bravely as 
their fathers led it in the last. 



CARL SCHURZ 

[Extracts from a speech delivered at the University of Chicago, 
January 4, 1899.J 



"AMERICANIZING'' OUR NEW POSSES- 
SIONS 

"When the question is asked whether we may hope to 
adapt new countries and populations to our system of 
government the advocates of annexation answer cheer- 
ily that when they belong to us we shall soon " Ameri- 
canize " them. This may mean that Americans in suffi- 
cently large numbers will migrate there to determine 
the character of those populations so as to assimilate 
them to our own. This is a delusion of the first magni- 
tude. We shall, indeed, be able, if we go honestly 
about it, to accomplish several salutary things in those 
countries. But one thing we cannot do. We cannot 
strip the tropical climate of those qualities which have 
at all times deterred men of the Northern races, to 
which we belong, from migrating to those countries in 
mass, to make their homes there, as they have migi'atcd 
and are still migrating to countries in the temperate 
zone. This is not a mere theory, but a fact of universal 
experience. 

The scheme of Americanizing our "new posses- 
sions " in that sense is, therefore, absolutely hopeless. 
The immediate forces of nature are against it. What- 
ever we may do for their improvement, the people of 

269 



270 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

the Spanish Antilles "\W11 remain in overwhelming 
numerical predominance, Spanish Creoles and negroes, 
and the people of the Philippines, Filipinos, Malays, 
Tagals — some of them quite clever in their wav, but 
the vast majority utterly alien to us, not only in origin 
and language, but in habits, traditions, ways of think- 
ing, principles, ambitions — in short, in most things 
that are of the greatest importance in human in- 
tercourse, and especially in political co-operation. 
And under the influence of their tropical climate 
they would prove incapable of becoming assimilated to 
the Anglo-Saxon. They would, therefore, remain in 
the population of this Republic a hopelessly hetero- 
geneous element — in some respects much more hope- 
less than the colored people now living among us. 

If we do adopt such a system, then we shall, for the 
first time since the abolition of slavery, again have 
two kinds of Americans — Americans of the first class, 
who enjoy the pri^'ilege of taking part in the Gov- 
ernment in accordance with our old constitutional 
principles, and Americans of the second class, who are 
to be ruled in a substantially arbitrary fashion by the 
Americans of the first class, through congressional 
legislation and the action of the national executive — 
not to speak of individual " masters," arrogating to 
themselves powers beyond the law. 

This will be a difference no better — nay, rather 
somewhat worse — than that w^hich a century and a 
quarter ago still existed between Englishmen of the 
first and Englishmen of the second class, the first repre- 
sented by King George and the British Parliament, 
and the second by the American colonists. This differ- 
ence called forth that great psean of human liberty, 
the American Declaration of Independence — a docu- 
ment which, I regret to say, seems, owing to the intox- 
ication of conquest, to have lost much of its charm 
among some of our fellow-citizens. Its fundamental 



GAEL SCHURZ 271 

principle was that " governments derive their just pow- 
ers from the consent of the governed." We are now told 
that we have never fully lived up to that principle, and 
that, therefore, in our new policy we may cast it aside 
altogether. 

But I say to you that, if we are true believers in 
democratic government, it is our duty to move in the 
direction toward the full realization of that principle 
and not in the direction away from it. If you tell me 
that we cannot govern the people of those new posses- 
sions in accordance with that principle, then I answer 
that this is a reason why this democracy should not 
attempt to govern them at all. 

If we do, we shall transform the Government of the 
people, for the people, and by the people, for which 
Abraham Lincoln lived, into a government of one part 
of the people, the strong, over another part, the weak. 
Such an abandonment of a fundamental principle as a 
permanent policy may at first seem to bear only upon 
more or less distant dependencies, but it can hardly fail 
in its ultimate effects to disturb the rule of the same 
principle in the conduct of democratic government at 
home. And I warn the American people that a democ- 
racy cannot so deny its faith as to the vital conditions 
of its being — it cannot long play the king over subject 
I3opulations without creating in itself ways of thinking 
and habits of action most dangerous to its own -vitality 
— most dangerous especially to those classes of society 
which are least powerful in the assertion and the most 
helpless in the defence of their rights. Let the poor 
and the men who earn their bread by the labor of 
their hands pause and consider well before they give 
their assent to a policy so deliberately forgetful of the 
equality of rights. 



272 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

II. 

OBJECTIONS TO EXPANSION 

You may think that the introduction of more than 
thirty men in our Senate, over eighty in the lower 
house of our Congi'ess, and much over one hundred 
votes in our Electoral College, to speak and act for the 
mixture of Spanish, French, and negro blood on the 
West India Islands, and for the Spanish and Indian 
mixture on the continent south of us — for people ut- 
terly alien and mostly incapable of assimilation to us in 
their tropical habitation — to make our laws and elect 
our Presidents, and incidentally to help us lift up the 
Philippines to a higher plane of civilization — is too 
shocking a proposition to be entertained for a moment, 
and that our people will resist it to the bitter end. No, 
they will not resist it if indiscriminate expansion has 
once become the settled policy of the Republic. 

Our people, having yielded to such cries once, will 
yield to them again. Conservative citizens will tell 
them that thus the homogeneousness of the people of 
the Republic so essential to the working of our demo- 
cratic institutions, will be irretrievably lost; that our 
race troubles, already dangerous, vnW be infinitely ag- 
gravated, and that the Government of, by, and for the 
people will be in imminent danger of fatal demoraliza- 
tion. They will be cried down as pusillanimous pessi- 
mists, who are no longer American patriots. The 
American people will be driven on and on by the force 
of events as Napoleon was when started on his career 
of limitless conquest. This is imperialism as now ad- 
vocated. Do we -^nsh to prevent its excesses ? Then we 
must stop it at the beginning, before taking Porto Rico. 
If we take that island, not even to speak of the Philip- 
pines, we shall place ourselves on the inclined plane. 



CARL SCHURZ 273 

and roll on and on, no longer masters of our own will, 
until we shall reach bottom. And where will that 
bottom be? Who knows? 

The people of those islands will either peaceably sub- 
mit to our rule or they will not. If they do not, and we 
must conquer them by force of arms, we shall at once 
have a war on our hands. What kind of a war will 
that be ? The Filipinos fought against Spain for their 
freedom and independence, and unless they abandon 
their recently proclaimed purpose for their freedom 
and independence, they will fight against us. To be 
sure, we promise them all sorts of good things if they 
will consent to become our subjects. But they may, 
and probably will, prefer independence to foreign 
rule, no matter w^hat fair promises the foreign invader 
makes. For to the Filipinos the American is essentially 
a foreigner, more foreign in some respects than even 
the Spaniard was. Subjection to foreign rule is not to 
everybody's taste, and as to the question of their rights 
under principles of international law, you need only 
read the protest against our treaty of Paris by their 
representative, Agoncillo, to admit that they make out 
a strong case. !N^ow, if they resist, what shall we do? 
Kill them? Let soldiers marching under the Stars and 
Stripes shoot them dowoi? Shoot them down because 
they stand up for their independence, just as the 
Cubans, who are no better than they, fought for their 
independence, to which w^e solemnly declared them to 
be " of right " entitled? Look at this calmly if you 
can. 

The American volunteers, who rushed to arms by 
the hundreds of thousands to fight for Cuban inde- 
pendence, may not stomach this killing of Filipinos 
fighting for their independence. We shall have to 
rely upon the regulars, the professional soldiers, and we 
may need a good many of them. As to the best way to 
fillthe ranks in the Philippines, General Merritt is re- 



274 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

ported to have said in a recent interview that Spaniards 
could successfully be employed as soldiers in our army. 
But the idea of engaging the same Spaniards, who but 
recently fought us and the Filipinos at the same time, 
to do the killing of the same Filipinos for us, or at 
least to terrorize them into subjection, because we want 
to possess their land, and to do this under the Stars 
and Stripes — this idea is at first sight a little startling. 
It may make the Hessians of our Revolutionary War 
grin in their graves. If anybody had predicted such a 
possibility a year ago, every patriotic American would 
have felt an impulse to kick him down-stairs. 

However, this is imperialism. It bids us not to be 
squeamish. Indeed, some of our fellow-citizens seem 
already to be full of its spirit. If we take those new 
regions we shall be well entangled in that contest for 
territorial aggrandizement which distracts other na- 
tions and drives them far beyond their original design. 
So it will be inevitably with us. "We shall want new 
conquests to protect that which we already possess. 
The greed of specul-^tors working upon our Govern- 
ment will push us from one point to another, and we 
shall have new conflicts on our hands, almost ^^'ithout 
knowing how we got into them. It has always been so 
under such circumstances, and always will be. This 
means more and more soldiers, ships, and guns. 



III. 

RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND 

A SINGULAR delusion has taken hold of the minds of 
otherwise clear-headed men. It is that our new friend- 
ship with England will serve firmly to secure the 
world's peace. ITobody can hail that friendly feeling 
between the two nations more warmly than I do, and I 



GAEL SCHURZ 276 

fervidly hope it will last. But I am profoundly con- 
vinced that if this friendship results in the two coun- 
tries setting out to grasp " for the Anglo-Saxon," as 
the phrase is, whatever of the earth may be attainable 
— if they hunt in couple, they will surely soon fall out 
about the game, and the first serious quarrel, or at least 
one of the first, we shall have will be with Great Brit- 
ain. And as family feuds are the bitterest, that feud 
will be apt to become one of the most deplorable in its 
consequences. 

No nation is, or ought to be, unselfish, England in 
her friendly feeling toward us is not inspired by mere 
sentimental benevolence. The anxious wish of many 
Englishmen that we should take the Philippines is not 
free from the consideration that, if we do so, we shall 
for a long time depend on British friendship to main- 
tain our position on that field of rivalry, and that Brit- 
ain will derive ample profit from our dependence on 
her. British friendship is a good thing to have, but, 
perhaps, not so good a thing to need. If we are wise 
we shall not put ourselves in a situation in which we 
shall need it. British statesmanship has sometimes 
shown great skill in making other nations fight its bat- 
tles. This is very admirable from its point of view, 
but it is not so pleasant for the nations so used. I should 
be loath to see this Republic associated with Great Brit- 
ain in apparently joint concerns as a junior partner 
with a minority interest, or the American navy in the 
situation of a mere squadron of the British fleet. 

This would surely lead to trouble in the settling of 
accounts. Lord Salisbury was decidedly right when, at 
the last Lord Mayor's banquet, he said that the appear- 
ance of the Li'nited States as a factor in Asiatic affairs 
was likely to conduce to the interests of Great Britain, 
but might " not conduce to the interest of peace." 
Whether he had eventual quan-els with this Republic 
in mind I do not know. But it is certain that the ex- 



276 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

pression of Britisli sentiment I have just quoted shows 
us a Pandora's box of such quarrels. 

Ardently desiring the maintenance of the friendship 
between England and this Republic, I cannot but ex- 
press the profound belief that this friendship will re- 
main most secure if the two nations do not attempt to 
accomplish the same ends in the same way, but con- 
tinue to follow the separate courses prescribed by their 
peculiar conditions and their history. We can exercise 
the most beneficent influences upon mankind, not by 
forcing our rule or our goods upon others that are weak 
by the force of bayonets and artillery, but through the 
moral power of our example, by proving how the gi'eat- 
est as well as the smallest nation can carry on the gov- 
ernment of the people, by the people, and for the peo- 
ple, in justice, liberty, order, and peace without large 
armies and navies. 

Let this Republic and Great Britain each follow the 
course which its conditions and its history have as- 
signed to it, and their ambitions will not clash, and 
their friendship be maintained for the good of all. And 
if our British cousins should ever get into very serious 
stress, American friendship may stand behind them; 
but then Britain would depend upon our friendship, 
which, as an American, I should prefer, and not 
American on British friendship, as our British friends, 
who so impatiently urge us to take the Philippines, 
would have it. But if we do take the Philippines, and 
thus entangle ourselves in the rivalries of Asiatic af- 
fairs, the future will be, as Lord Salisbury predicted, 
one of wars and rumors of wars, and the time ^vill be 
forever past when we could look do^vH ^vith condescend- 
ing pity on the nations of the Old World groaning under 
militarism with all its burdens. 



CARL SCHURZ 277 

IV. 

THE NATION'S CREDIT AT STAKE 

When the Cuban affair approached a crisis Presi- 
dent McKinley declared in his message that " forcible 
annexation cannot be thought of," for " it would, by 
our code of morals, be criminal aggression," And in 
resolving upon the war against Spain, Congress, to com- 
mend the war to the public opinion of the world, de- 
clared with equal emphasis and solemnity that the war 
was, from a sense of duty and humanity, made specifi- 
cally for the liberation of Cuba, and that Cuba " is, and 
of right ought to be, free and independent." If these 
declarations were not sincere, they were base and dis- 
graceful acts of hypocrisy. If they were sincere at the 
time, would they not be turned into such disgraceful 
acts of hypocrisy by subsequently turning the war, pro- 
fessedly made from motives of duty and humanity, into 
a war of conquest and self-aggi-andizement ? It is pre- 
tended that those virtuous promises referred to Cuba 
only. But if President McKinley had said that the 
forcible annexation of Cuba would be criminal aggres- 
sion, but that the forcible annexation of anything else 
would be perfectly right, and if Congress had declared 
that, as to Cuba, the war would be one of mere duty, 
humanity, and liberation, but that we would take by 
conquest whatever else we could lay our hands on, 
would not all mankind have broken out in a shout of 
scornful derision? 

I ask in all candor, taking President McKinley at his 
word, will the forcible annexation of the Philippines 
by our code of morals not be criminal aggression — a 
self-confessed crime? I ask further, if the Cubans, as 
Congress declared, are, and of right ought to be, free 
and independent, can anybody tell me why the Porto 



278 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Ricans and the Filipinos ought not of right to be free 
and independent? Can you sincerely recognize the 
right to freedom and independence of one and refuse 
the same right to another in the same situation, and 
then take his land ? Would not that be double-dealing 
of the most shameful sort? 

We hear much of the respect of mankind for us hav- 
ing been greatly raised by our victories. Indeed, the 
valor of our soldiers and the brilliant achievements of 
our navy have won deserved admiration. But do not 
deceive yourselves about the respect of mankind. 
Recently I found in the papers an account of the public 
opinion of Europe, written by a prominent English 
journalist. This is what he says: " The friends of 
America wring their hands in unaffected grief over the 
fall of the United States under the temptation of the 
lust of territorial expansion. Her enemies shoot out 
the lip and shriek in derision over what they regard as 
the unmistakable demonstration which the demand 
for the Philippines affords of American cupidity, 
American bad faith, and American ambition. ' We 
told you so,' they exclaim. That is what the unctuous 
rectitude of the Anglo-Saxon always ends in. He 
always begins by calling heaven to witness his unself- 
ish desire to help his neighbors, but he always ends 
by stealing his spoons! " 

Atrocious, is it not? And yet, this is substantially 
what the true friends of America and what her enemies 
in Europe think — I mean those friends who had faith 
in the nobility of the American people, who loved our 
republican Government, and who hoped that the ex- 
ample set by our great democracy would be an inspira- 
tion to those struggling for liberty the world over, and 
I mean those enemies who hate republican govern- 
ment and who long to see the American people dis- 
graced and humiliated. So they think ; I know it from 
my own correspondence. Nothing has in our times dis- 



CAKL SCHUKZ 279 

credited the name of republic in the civilized world as 
much as the Dreyfus outrage in France and our con- 
quest furor in America; and our conquest furor more, 
because from us the world hoped more. 

]^o, do not deceive yourselves. If we turn that 
war which was so solemnly commended to the favor of 
mankind as a generous war of liberation and humanity 
into a victory for conquest and self-aggrandizement, we 
shall have thoroughly forfeited our moral credit with 
the world. Professions of unselfish virtue and benevo- 
lence, proclamations of noble humanitarian purposes 
coming from us will never, never be trusted again. Is 
this the position in which this great Republic of ours 
should stand among the family of nations? Our Ameri- 
can self-respect should rise in indignant protest against 
it. And now compare this picture of the state of things 
which threatens us with the picture I drew of our con- 
dition existing before the expansion fever seized us. 
Which will you choose? 



V. 

IMPEDIMENT TO DISARMAMENT 

Not we ourselves, but our rivals and possible 
enemies will decide how large our armies and navies 
must be, and how much money we must spend for 
them. And all that money will have to come out of the 
pockets of our people, the poor as well as the rich. Our 
tax-paying capacity and willingness are, indeed, very 
great. But set your policy of imperialism in full 
swing, as the acquisition of the Philippines will do, and 
the time will come, and come quickly, when every 
American farmer and working-man, when going to his 
toil, will, like his European brother, have " to carry a 
fully armed soldier on his back." 



280 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Our Government has agreed to appear in the 
" peace-and-disarmament conference " called by the 
Russian Czar. What will our representative have to 
say when the Russian spokesman, as the Czar has done, 
truthfully describes the ever-gromng evils of militar- 
ism, and the necessity of putting a stop to them in the 
interest of civilization and of the popular welfare? 
The American imperialist, whatever fine phrases he 
may employ, will have to say substantially this: "All 
you tell us about the ruinous effects of increasing arma- 
ments and the necessity of stopping them in the inter- 
est of civilization and the popular welfare is true. It 
was our o\\ti belief some time ago. But we Americans 
have recently changed our minds. You gentlemen 
say that the powers you represent would disarm if they 
could, and that general disarmament might be possible 
if one power would resolutely begin to disarm. But 
we Americans are just beginning to arm. You say that 
this will put another difficulty in the way of general 
disarmament. But we Americans have, by way of lib- 
erating Cuba, won by conquest some islands in both 
hemispheres, to which we may wish to add, and this 
business will require larger armies and navies than we 
have now." 

This is the voice of American imperialism. And 
thus our great and glorious Republic, which once 
boasted of marching in the vanguard of progressive 
civilization, will deliberately go to the rear, and make 
of itself a new obstacle to a reform, the success of which 
would do infinitely more for the general good of man- 
kind than we could accomplish by a hundred victories 
of our arms on land or sea. That our victories have de- 
volved upon us certain duties as to the people of the 
conquered islands I readily admit. But are they the 
only duties we have to perform, or have they suddenly 
become paramount to all other duties? I deny it. I 
deny that the duties we owe to the Cubans and the 



CARL SCHURZ 281 

Porto Kicans and the Filipinos and the Tagals of the 
Asiatic islands absolve us from our duties to the sev- 
enty-five millions of our own people and to their pos- 
terity. I deny that they oblige us to destroy the moral 
credit of our own Republic by turning this loudly 
heralded war of liberation and humanity into a land- 
grabbing game and an act of criminal aggression. I 
deny that they compel us to aggravate our race troubles, 
to bring upon us the constant danger of war, and to 
subject our people to the galling burden of increasing 
armaments. 

If we have rescued these unfortunate daughters of 
Spain, the colonies, from the tjTanny of their cruel 
father, I deny that we are, therefore, in honor bound 
to marry any of the girls, or to take them into our 
household, where they may disturb and demoralize our 
whole family. I deny that the liberation of those 
Spanish dependencies morally constrains us to do any- 
thing that would put our highest mission to solve the 
great problem of democratic government in jeopardy, 
or that would otherwise endanger the vital interests of 
the Eepublic. Whatever our duties to them may be, 
our duties to our own country and people stand first ; 
and from this stand-point we have, as sane men and 
patriotic citizens, to regard our obligation to take care 
of the future of those islands and their people. 



VI. 

DUTY TO OUR POSSESSIONS 

"We cannot expect that the Porto Ricans, the Cu- 
bans, and the Filipinos will maintain orderly govern- 
ments in Anglo-Saxon fashion. But they may succeed 
in establishing a tolerable order of things in their fash- 
ion; as Mexico, after many decades of turbulent dis- 



282 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

order, succeeded at last, under Diaz, in having a strong 
and orderly government of lier kind, not, indeed, such 
a government as we would tolerate in this Union, but a 
government answering Mexican character and inter- 
ests, and respectable in its relations with the outside 
world. 

This will become all the more possible if, without an- 
nexing and ruling those people, we simply put them on 
their feet, and then give them the benefit of the humani- 
tarian spirit which, as we claim, led us into the war for 
the liberation of Cuba. To this end we should keep our 
troops on the islands until their people have constructed 
governments and organized forces of their own for the 
maintenance of order. Our military occupation should 
not be kept up as long as possible, but should be with- 
drawn as soon as possible. The Philippines may, as 
Belgium and Switzerland are in Europe, be covered 
by a guarantee of neutrality on the part of the powers 
most interested in that region — an agreement which 
the diplomacy of the United States should not find it 
difficult to obtain. This would secure them against 
foreign aggression. 

As to the independent republics of Porto Kico and 
Cuba, our Government might lend its good offices to 
unite them with San Domingo and Hayti in a con- 
federacy of the Antilles, to give them a more respectable 
international standing. Stipulations should be agreed 
upon with them as to open ports and the freedom of 
business enterprise within their borders, affording all 
possible commercial facilities. Missionary effort in the 
largest sense as to the development of popular educa- 
tion, and of other civilizing agencies, as w^ell as abun- 
dant charity in case of need, will on our part not be 
wanting, and all this will help to mitigate their dis- 
orderly tendencies and to steady their governments. 

Thus we shall be their best friends without being 
their foreign rulers. We shall have done our duty to 



CARL SCHURZ 283 

them, to ourselves, and to the world. However imper- 
fect their governments may still remain, they will at 
least be their own, and they will not with their dis- 
orders and corruptions contaminate our institutions; 
the integrity of which is not only to ourselves, but to 
liberty-loving mankind, the most important concern of 
all. We may then await the result with generous pa- 
tience — with the same patience with which for many- 
years we witnessed the revolutionary disorders of Mex- 
ico on our very borders, without any thought of taking 
her government into our own hands. 

Ask yourselves whether a policy like this will raise 
the American people to a level of moral greatness 
never before attained ! If this democracy, after all the 
intoxication of triumph in war, conscientiously remem- 
bers its professions and pledges, and soberly reflects on 
its duties to itself and others, and then deliberately re- 
sists the temptation of conquest, it will achieve the 
grandest triumph of the democratic idea that history 
knows of. It will give the government of, for, and by 
the people a prestige it never before possessed. It will 
render the cause of civilization throughout the world a 
service without parallel. It will put its detractors to 
shame, and its voice v/ill be heard in the council of na- 
tions with more sincere respect and more deference 
than ever. The American people, having given proof 
of their strength and also of their honesty and wisdom, 
will stand infinitely mightier before the world than any 
number of subjugated vassals could make them. Are 
not here our best interests, moral and material? Is not 
this genuine glory ? Is not this true patriotism ? 

I call upon all who so believe never to lose heart in 
the struggle for this great cause, whatever odds may 
seem to be against us. Let there be no pusillanimous 
yielding while the final decision is still in the balance. 
Let us relax no effort in this, the greatest crisis the Ke- 
public has ever seen. Let us never cease to invoke the 



284 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

good sense, the honesty, and the patriotic pride of the 
people. Let us raise high the flag of our country — not 
as an emblem of reckless adventure and greedy con- 
quest, of betrayed professions and broken pledges, of 
criminal aggression and arbitrary rule over subject 
populations — but the old, the true flag; the flag of 
George Washington and Abraham Lincoln; the flag 
of the government of, for, and by the people ; the flag 
of national faith held sacred and of national honor un- 
sullied ; the flag of human rights and of good example 
to all nations; the flag of true civilization, peace, and 
good-will to all men. Under it let us stand to the last, 
whatever betide. 



CRIMINAL AGGRESSION 

[From a speech delivered at Central Music Hall, Chicago, October 
17, 1899.] 

I ASK you, in all soberness, leaving all higher con- 
siderations of justice, morality, and principle aside, 
whether, from a mere business point of view, the kill- 
ing policy of subjugation is not a colossal, stupid blun- 
der, and whether it would not have been, and now be, 
infinitely more sensible to win the confidence and culti- 
vate the friendship of the islanders by recognizing 
them as of right entitled to their freedom and inde- 
pendence, as we have recognized the Cubans, and thus 
to obtain from their friendship and gratitude, for the 
mere asking, all the coaling-stations and commercial 
facilities we require, instead of getting those things by 
fighting at an immense cost of blood and treasure, with 
a probability of having to fight for them again ? I put 
this question to every business man who is not a fool 
or a reckless speculator. Can there be any doubt of the 
answer? 



CARL SCHURZ 285 

A word now on a special point: There are some 
very estimable men among us who think that even if 
we concede to the islanders their independence we 
should at least keep the city of Manila. I think dif- 
ferently, not from a mere impulse of generosity, but 
from an entirely practical point of view. Manila is 
the traditional, if not the natural, capital of the archi- 
pelago. To recognize the independence of the Philip- 
pine Islands, and at the same time to keep from them 
Manila, would mean as much as to recognize the in- 
dependence of Cuba and to keep Havana. It would 
mean to withhold from the islanders their metropolis, 
that in which they naturally take the greatest pride, 
that which they legitimately most desire to have, and 
which, if withheld from them, they would most ar- 
dently wish to get back. 

The withholding of Manila would inevitably leave a 
sting in their hearts which would never cease to rankle, 
and might, under critical circumstances, give us as 
much trouble as the withholding of independence it- 
self. If we wish them to be our friends we should not 
do things by halves, but enable them to be our friends 
without reserve. And I maintain that, commercially 
as well as politically speaking, the true friendship of 
the Philippine Islanders will, as to our position in the 
East, be worth far more to us than the possession of 
Manila. We can certainly find other points which 
will give us similar commercial as well as naval ad- 
vantages without exciting any hostile feeling. 

Although I have by no means exhausted this vast 
subject, discussing only a few phases of it, I have said 
enough, I think, to show that this policy of conquest 
is, from the point of view of public morals, in truth, 
" criminal aggression " — made doubly criminal by the 
treacherous character of it, and that from the^ point 
of view of material interest it is a blunder — a criminal 
blunder, and a blundering crime. I have addressed 



286 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

myself to jour reason by sober argument, without any 
appeal to prejudice or passion. Might we not ask our 
opponents to answer these arguments, if they can, with 
equally sober reasoning, instead of merely assailing us 
with their wild cries of '' treason " and " lack of pa- 
triotism " and what not? Or do they really feel their 
cause to be so weak that they depend for its support on 
their assortment of inarticulate shouts and nebulous 
phrases? I plead the cause of the American people 
against all this; and I here declare my profound con- 
viction that if this administration of our affairs were 
submitted for judgment to a popular vote on a clear 
issue it would be condemned by an overwhelming ma- 
jority. 

I confidently trust that the American people will 
prove themselves too clear-headed not to appreciate 
the vital difference between the expansion of the Re- 
public and its free institutions over contiguous terri- 
tory and kindred populations, which we all gladly wel- 
come if accomplished peaceably and honorably — and 
imperialism, which reaches out for distant lands to 
be ruled as subject provinces; too intelligent not to 
perceive that our very first step on the road of imperi- 
alism has been a betrayal of the fundamental princi- 
ples of democracy, followed by disaster and disgrace; 
too enlightened not to understand that a monarchy 
may do such things and still remain a strong monarchy, 
while a democracy cannot do them and still remain 
a democracy; too wise not to detect the false pride 
or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which 
so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of 
mock patriotism, " Our country, right or ^vrong! " 
They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our 
free institutions, and the peace and welfare of this 
and coming generations of Americans will be secure 
only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism, 
" Our country — when right to be kept right; when 
wrong to be put right." 



GAEL SCHURZ 287 

IMPERIALISM HOSTILE TO LIBERTY 

[Delivered at Chicago, October 18, 1899.] 

We hold that the policy known as imperialism is 
hostile to liberty and tends toward militarism, an evil 
from which it has been our glory to be free. We re- 
gret that it has become necessary in the land of Wash- 
ington and Lincoln to re-afhrm that all men, of what- 
ever race or color, are entitled to life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness. We maintain that governments 
derive their just powers from the consent of the gov- 
erned. We insist that the subjugation of any people 
is " criminal aggression " and open disloyalty to the 
distinctive principles of our Government. We ear- 
nestly condemn the policy of the present national ad- 
ministration in the Philippines. It seeks to extin- 
guish the spirit of 1776 in those islands. We deplore 
the sacrifice of our soldiers and sailors, whose bravery 
deserves admiration even in an unjust war. We de- 
nounce the slaughter of the Filipinos as a needless 
horror. We protest against the extension of American 
sovereignty by Spanish methods. 

We demand the immediate cessation of the war 
against liberty, begun by Spain and continued by us. 
We urge that Congress be promptly convened to an- 
nounce to the Filipinos our purpose to concede to them 
the independence for which they have so long fought, 
and which of right is theirs. The United States has 
always protested against the doctrine of international 
law, which permits the subjugation of the weak by the 
strong. A self-governing state cannot accept sover- 
eignty over an unwilling people. The United States 
cannot act upon the ancient heresy, that might makes 
right. Imperialists assume that with the destniction 
by American hands of self-government in the Philip- 



288 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

pines all opposition here will cease. This is a grievous 
error. Much as we abhor the war of " criminal aggres- 
sion " in the Philippines, greatly as we regret that the 
blood of the Filipinos is on American hands, we more 
deeply resent the betrayal of American institutions 
at home. The real firing-line is not in the suburbs of 
Manila. The foe is of our own household. The at- 
tempt of 1861 was to divide the country. That of 
1899 is to destroy its fundamental principles and no- 
blest ideals. 

Whether the ruthless slaughter of the Filipinos shall 
end next month or next year is but an incident in a 
contest that must go on until the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and the Constitution of the United States 
are rescued from the hands of their betrayers. Those 
who dispute about standards of value while the founda- 
tion of the Republic is undermined will be listened 
to as little as those who would wrangle about the small 
economics of the household while the house is on fire. 
The training of a great people for a century, the as- 
piration for liberty of a vast immigration, who have 
made their homes here, are forces that will hurl aside 
those who, in the delirium of conquest, seek to destroy 
the character of our institutions. 

We deny that the obligation of all citizens to sup- 
port their Government in times of grave national peril 
applies to the present situation. If an administration 
may, with impunity, ignore the issues upon which it 
was chosen, deliberately create a condition of warfare 
anywhere on the face of the globe, debauch the civil 
service for spoils to promote the adventure, organize 
a truth-suppressing censorship, and demand of all citi- 
zens a suspension of judgment and their unanimous 
support while it chooses to continue the fighting, rep- 
resentative government itself is imperilled. We pro- 
pose to contribute to the defeat of any person or party 
that stands for the forcible subjugation of any people. 



CARL SCHUEZ 289 

We shall oppose for re-election all wlio, in the White 
House or in Congress, betray American liberty in pur- 
suit of un-American ends. We still hope that both 
our great political parties will support and defend the 
Declaration of Independence in the closing campaign 
of the century. 

We hold with Abraham Lincoln, that " no man is 
good enough to govern another man without that 
other's consent." When the white man governs him- 
self, that is self-government; but when he governs 
himself and also governs another man, that is more 
than self-government — that is despotism. Our reliance 
is in the laws of liberty, which God has planted in us. 
Our defence is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the 
heritage of all men in all lands everywhere. Those 
who deny freedom to others deserve it not for them- 
selves, and imder a just God cannot long retain it. 
We cordially invite the co-operation of all men and 
women who remain loyal to the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence and the Constitution of the United States. 



CHAELES EMOKY SMITH 
THE WAR FOR HUMANITY 

[Delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, October 16, 1898.) 

We have just emerged from a short, but momentous 
war, whose transcendent events have spanned the whole 
wide horizon of this world, and have unveiled a new 
destiny for this country. This war has been altogether 
unique, exceptional, and remarkable in the annals of 
mankind. The American people make war as they 
make peace, according to their own peculiar principle 
and their own ideals. There never was a war made 
under such circumstances and under such conditions 
as that upon which we entered last April. We did not 
make war or accept war for conquest, for power, or for 
glory. We made war simply and solely for humanity 
and justice. We did not make it for ourselves, or for 
our own aggrandizement, but we made it for a long- 
suffering people, entirely outside of our own domain. 

For years the oppressed people of Armenia had 
been lifting their piteous appeal, through the awful 
slaughter of 80,000 innocents, and Europe stood ab- 
solutely unmoved and lifted no hand. But when 
havoc and desolation and destruction, when the torch 
and the sword stalked through the fair island of Cuba, 
and demanded the interference of this country in the 
name of humanity, we could not remain silent. The 
President of the IJnited States, who loves peace better 
than he loves war, and who has no aspiration for the 
glory of martial achievements, sought to avert the con- 

290 



CHARLES EMORY SMITH 291 

flict and accomplish the results upon which the Ameri- 
can heart was set without the necessity of war. For long 
weeks he labored, by all the arts of diplomacy and the 
exercise of high statesmanship, to save this people from 
bloodshed, and yet to rescue the people of Cuba from 
the oppressive hand of Spain. 

When at last the war became inevitable, he entered 
upon the war with the same earnestness, the same 
vigor, and the same power with which he had sought 
to conduct this country through the times of peace. 
With a sureness of aim that was unerring, with a di- 
rectness that was unfaltering, with a breadth and 
sweep of success that was absolutely unbroken, we en- 
tered upon this war and prosecuted it, so that in Au- 
gust we were celebrating peace. Here we are five 
months only from the time the tocsin sounded, and 
the echoes of that glorious May-day, when the heroic 
Dewey steamed into the harbor of Manila, defiant 
equally of mine and of fort, and won the greatest sea- 
fight of modern times, are still ringing in our ears and 
thrilling our hearts. The triumphs of Santiago, on 
land and on sea, added no less lustre to our arms. 

In April, as we entered upon this contest, every man 
was asking whether it would last one year or two, or 
more; every man was asking himself what reverses 
and what sacrifices we must suffer before we could 
achieve the ultimate triumph in which we all had im- 
plicit faith. Every man was asking himself which 
of our great war-ships would it be — the Oregon, or 
the Texas, or the Iowa, or the Massachusetts — that 
would follow the fate of the Maine in this contest, 
and go to the bottom of the sea, for surely we could 
not go through the war without some loss on our 
part. And yet, within less than one hundred days, 
after brilliant campaigns in two hemispheres, after 
completely annihilating two Spanish fleets and ac- 
cepting the surrender of two Spanish armies; after 



292 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

absolutely obliterating the power of Spain on tbe sea 
and extinguishing the colonial remains of Spain on 
land, we come to a climax of triumph which stands 
absolutely unparalleled in history — a triumph which 
in the splendor of its character and in the far-reaching 
extent of its influence is absolutely unprecedented. A 
hundred days of war, and civilization, measured by the 
influence which is to be exercised in far-distant climes, 
carried forward not less than one hundred years. 

We have taken a new position in the great family of 
nations. We have stepped out upon the broad stage of 
the world's action, and have become one of the great 
powers. We have advanced from continental domain 
to world-wide influence. We have emerged from a re- 
stricted sphere into the arena of the world's activities, 
and the whole world to-day recognizes that the Ameri- 
can Republic holds such a position as it has never held 
before. We have not only commanded the new rec- 
ognition of our position on the part of the world, but 
we now know ourselves better than we ever knew our- 
selves before. We know the things of which we are 
capable; we know the stuff of which the American 
people are made. We have reunited our country and 
brought North and South together as they have not 
been since those early days when the Puritan and the 
Cavalier shed their blood on the field of YorktoAvn. 
We have seen the men who came from the prairies 
and the men from the brownstone mansions all up- 
holding this flag of ours. We have learned that the 
manhood and the strength of the American character 
still remain. We have risen to a new conception of 
our national possibilities and our national greatness. 

We all feel the blood of true patriotism leap in 
our veins. We are all prouder to be Americans, and all 
have a broader and truer understanding of the great- 
ness of our country and of the grander destiny which 
lies before the American people. And it is worth more 



CHARLES EMORY SMITH 293 

than all the cost of the war to have had this revelation 
of the character of the people and the possibilities of 
our great Republic brought thus home to our hearts 
and our minds. It remains for us to recognize that 
we have great problems in peace, as we had great prob- 
lems in war; but I am sure I do not misinterpret the 
spirit of this assemblage when I saj that just as you 
followed and trusted the President of the United States 
during these trying times, so you expect him to lead 
you in the work of peace, and to determine what the 
position and attitude of this Republic shall be. 

A year ago it was my fortune to be at Newport when 
nearly two hundred pleasure-craft, many since convert- 
ed into fighters, and some of the great war-ships of the 
nation, were assembled in that harbor. Ten thousand 
Chinese lanterns made a fairy-scene of beauty. Sud- 
denly, far above the myriad lights on sea and shore, 
on the topmost mast of the commodore's boat, since 
made illustrious as the invincible Gloucester, under 
the gallant Wainwright, the bright Stars and Stripes 
of Old Glory burst forth under the glittering rays of 
the keenest search-light, with a splendor of coloring, 
all the more brilliant against the background of dark- 
blue sky, and all the cannon boomed a tribute to the 
new lustre which the flag seemed to gain under such 
circumstances. And so the search-light of the great 
events through which we have passed has given a 
new glory and meaning to the flag, and it is for us, as 
American citizens, to be worthy of the mission upon 
which we enter. 



294 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 



THE REPUBLIC'S HIGHER GLORY 

[Delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of the new Federal 
Building at Chicago, October 9, 1899.] 

It is the glorj of our American system that its op- 
portunities and advantages are not limited to any class, 
but are shared by all the people. With this unmatched 
growth, what imagination shall put metes and bounds 
to the advancement of our country? Is it expected 
that the marvellous development which has come with 
the wonderful material appliances and forces of the 
past three decades will now pause and stand still ? Are 
we henceforth to mark time instead of marching for- 
ward? Has our incomparable industrial production 
reached its limit? Is our gi'owing commerce to halt 
on the frontier of its old domain? Is the opening door 
of ^^dder fields and enlarged activity, within the broken 
walls of the Orient, to be unrecognized and unused? 

American valor and heroism have never touched 
sublimer heights or shed brighter lustre on the Ameri- 
can name than during the past two years. Are the 
genius of American progress and the fibre of American 
purpose unequal to the achievements of its heroism, 
and can it be said that the people who have wrought 
these masterful triumphs at home and abroad are too 
blinded to perceive that the waiting opportunity which 
has come with the high discharge of national duty 
lies along the true pathway of our commercial ex- 
pansion? But we do not and cannot think alone or 
chiefly of material development. Splendid as it has 
been in its colossal proportions, the higher glory of 
the Republic is its moral position and its embodiment 
of the principles of liberty. To that standard it can 
never be recreant. 

The flag floats to-day over a domain ten times as 



CHARLES EMORY SMITH 295 

great as that upon which its shining stars first shed 
their joyous beams. Its beneficial rule has been ex- 
tended from time to time over vast new acquisitions, 
but it has never broadened its sway without caiTying 
freedom, progress, and enlightenment to the fortunate 
peoples who were brought under its protecting folds. 
It is the same flag to-day that it has always been, but 
with added lustre and higher renown and a far deeper 
respect throughout the world. It has the same import 
and the same virtue. It signifies everywhere right, 
law, justice, and self-government within the limits of 
national sovereignty. 

What citizen of the Republic shall so impugn the 
honor of his country and the integrity of her institu- 
tions as to proclaim before the world that her sceptre 
extended over rude and remote peoples means wrong 
and oppression and spoliation? What American shall 
so discredit his own blood as to declare that the Ameri- 
can people will either falter in the duty of their trust 
or fail in the capacity of their task? 

Our inspiring past is the prophecy of our glorious 
future. The architect who plans a great capitol or 
cathedral sees with the eye of imagination the majestic 
structure in the full grandeur of its imposing propor- 
tions, and unless he could thus prefigure its finished 
beauty he would be unfit to lay its foundations. The 
builders and promoters of states also see with the eye 
of imagination. It is the function of creative states- 
manship to penetrate the future and discern its course 
and its needs. This Republic has a mission among the 
nations of the earth. It should be the highest exemplar 
of peace, liberty, humanity, and ci^ilization. As the 
noble statue of Liberty Enlightening the World rises 
from its great harbor and first greets the visitor as he 
comes from foreign lands, it is a symbol that our coun- 
try carries a torch of liberty to mankind, and its light 
must not be hid. 



296 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

** Heaven doth with us as we with torches do; 
JN'ot liglit them for tliemselves; for if our virtues 
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
As if we had them not." 

Upon the corner-stone laid here to-day will rise the 
symmetrical and harmonious j)roportions of a worthy 
edifice, which shall symbolize the authority of the 
Government, and become the pride of the city, and so 
upon the corner-stone laid by the fathers of the Ee- 
public, we of this day, like those who have gone be- 
fore us, are rearing the noble superstructure which, 
whether it arches the continent or spans the sea, shall 
represent and perpetuate the principles of law and 
liberty. 



EMORY SPEER 

[Extracts from a speech delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, 
October 18, 1898.J 

I. 

''ONE AND inseparable:' 

A Southern man, it is anticipated to-day that I 
shall respond for the South. The sunny land of my 
home is very dear to me, and I shall be ever glad to 
testify to the devoted and genuine Americanism of its 
people; but now it would appear to be superfluous. 
Here, in this great American city, where the people 
with pious hands gathered the ashes of the Confederate 
dead — here where with civic bounty they reared the fu- 
nereal marble to guard and to immortalize the sacred 
trust — here before numbers of that noble grand army 
of veterans, whose comrades reverently attended on 
the pathway to the tomb, the pale inanimate form of 
Winnie Davis, the daughter of the Confederacy — here 
before those who with sons of Confederate veterans, 
aye, and w^ith Confederate veterans themselves, were 
aligned under the starry banner of our united country 
against the common foe — with facts so eloquent no 
tongue less than divine could add one thought to 
quicken the fancy or stir the soul of the Union-lo^^ng 
patriot. Let me then speak not as a Southern man, 
not as an ex-Confederate soldier, but as a citizen of 
our reunited country. Let me thus speak for other 

297 



298 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

millions of Southern men whose hearts are inflamed 
with the same patriotism as that which animates yours 
on this, the national triumph, for the swift victory and 
glorious peace we celebrate to-day. 

Spain had long been our near and dangerous neigh- 
bor. Its people have a degree of reverence, almost 
superstitious, for monarchy, and regard republican in- 
stitutions with great disfavor. It has been said of Spain 
that some incurable vice in her organization, or it 
may be in the temper of her people, neutralizes all of 
the advantages she ought to derive from her sturdy 
hardihood, her nearly perfect capacity for endurance, 
and the sombre genius alike for war, for art, and for 
literature which has so often marked her sons. While 
this seems to be true, the Spaniard is not only a for- 
midable antagonist, but there is a wealth and charm 
in his rich, romantic history which command the 
admiration of a generous foeman. This must be ac- 
corded, whether we contemplate that ancient people 
as they alternately resist the aggressions of Carthage 
and of Rome, the fierce cavalry of Hamilcar, the le- 
gions of Scipio, of Pompey, and of Caesar, or, in more 
recent times, the achievements of their renowned in- 
fantry, which broke to fragments the best armies of 
Europe, or the infuriated people in arms against the 
hitherto unconquered veterans of Napoleon, or, but 
now as with patient and dogged courage, with flaming 
vollej's they vainly strive to hold the works of Caney 
and San Juan against the irresistible and rushing valor 
of the American soldier. 

The first to recognize the infant republics of South 
America, our Government took its favorite and accus- 
tomed post in the vanguard of liberty. For that rec- 
ognition that typical American, Henry Clay, in strains 
of persuasion as sweet as the honey of Mount Hymet- 
tus, with burning invectives like those which fell from 
the lips of Demosthenes, had alternately pleaded and 



EMORY SPEER 299 

stormed at the door of the American heart. The opu- 
lence of Argentina; the military power and national 
pride of Chile; the minerals, the marbles, the fruit, 
the grains, the flocks, and ordered strength of regene- 
rated Mexico; the marvellous increment to the com- 
merce of the world, the boundless possibilities for the 
support of millions of men in the redeemed colonies 
of Spain, persuade us that the smiles of heaven have 
approved the aspiration of the noble American who. 
pleaded for their independence. 

The Spaniards now had no foothold on the main- 
land of the North American continent save their Mexi- 
can possessions. Nor were these to be long retained. 
The genius of liberty nurtured and strengthened here 
soon winged its way to the southward. In 1818, 
Buenos Ayres had declared its independence. Par- 
aguay and the opposite shore of La Plata were in re- 
volt. The movement traversed the passes of the Andes, 
and animated the people of Peru and Chile. Vene- 
zuela and the northern portion of South America ral- 
lied to the banner of freedom, and finally, when, in 
1822, the heroic Bolivar, the South American "Wash- 
ington, in pitched battle destroyed the Spanish army, 
the American Congress, by a vote of 159 to 1, recog- 
nized the independence of Buenos Ayres, Chile, Peru, 
and Columbia. 

May the worn and wasted followei-s of Gomez and 
Garcia come to appreciate the blessings of that liberty 
under the law. No other wish is in consonance with 
the aims of the American people. We would not, if 
we could, be their masters. The gigantic power of the 
country has been put forth for their salvation and for 
their pacification. Connected with them by bonds of 
genuine sympathy and indissoluble interest, we labor 
with them to secure for them established justice,^ do- 
mestic tranquillity, general welfare, and the blessings 
of liberty to themselves and their posterity. For the 



300 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

common defence, in the blue ether above the Island 
of Cuba, is ever poised the eagle, 

" Whose golden plume 
Floats moveless on the storm, and in the blaze, 
Of sunlight gleams when earth is wrapt in gloom." 



II. 

THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

It was not enough for the American people to rec- 
ognize the independence of the Spanish-American re- 
publics. It soon became our duty to notify the world 
that in certain eventualities it was our purpose to de- 
fend their national existence. The Holy Alliance, as 
it was termed, had been formed. The great powers 
who signed the famous compact, declared their purpose 
to maintain as Christian doctrine the proposition that 
useful or necessary changes in legislation or in the ad- 
ministration of states can only emanate from the free- 
will and well-weighed convictions of those whom God 
has rendered responsible for power. Whom had God 
made responsible for power? What is a well-weighed 
conviction? These are questions about which the ir- 
reverent Americans might perchance differ with royal- 
ty. We had been led to believe, and yet believe, that 
the voice of the people is the voice of God. When, 
therefore, the absolutism of the Holy Alliance, not con- 
tent with smothering a feeble spark of liberty in Spain, 
initiated a joint movement of their ai*ms against the 
Spanish- American republics, it gave the people of our 
country the gravest concern. Meantime our relations 
with Great Britain had grown cordial. That they may 
grow ever stronger and more cordial should be the 
prayer of every man of the English-speaking race. An 



EMORY SPEER 301 

unspeakable blessing to mankind of the struggle from 
whicb we are now emerging is the genuine brotherly 
sympathy for the people of the United States, flow- 
ing from that land 

" Of old and great renown, 
Where freedom broadens slowly down 
From precedent to precedent. " 

And it is returned in no unstinted measure. But two 
months ago the flagship of Admiral Dewey steamed 
slowly into the battle-line at Manila. As she passed 
the British flagship Immortalite, its band rang out the 
inspiring air, " See the Conquering Hero Comes," and 
as the gorgeous ensign of our Republic was flung to 
the breeze at the peak of the Olympia, there now came 
thrilling o'er the waters from our kinsmen's ship, the 
martial strains of " The Star-Spangled Banner." Cer- 
tain it is that we also had the sympathy of the mother- 
country when, in 1823, it became necessary to call 
a halt to the Holy Alliance. Then it was that President 
Monroe announced that famous doctrine which bears 
his name. It was expressed in his message to Congress. 
It admonished the Holy Alliance " that we should con- 
sider any attempt on their part to extend their system 
to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our 
peace and safety." It was, writes an American his- 
torian, " the courage of a great people, personified in a 
firm chief magistrate, that put the fire into those few 
momentous though moderate sentences, and made them 
glow like the writing at Belshazzar's feast." 

The logical result of this doctrine, as it has been 
developed in our subsequent international relations, 
made it the sacred duty of the American people to 
terminate the Spanish atrocities in Cuba, peaceably 
if we could, forcibly if we must. Experience had 
shown that it could not be done save by a strong dis- 



302 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

play of force. This would not be made by any of the 
great European powers, except for a substantial equiva- 
lent in Cuba. The Monroe Doctrine had forbidden 
this. Then the duty was on us in the sight of God and 
man, to stay the unholy policy, which, as demonstrated 
before the Senate Committee, had in one year resulted 
in the starvation of two hundred thousand men, wom- 
en, and children, within a half-day's sail from our 
shores. To this purpose our President devoted every 
expedient of his resourceful nature, every firm but 
moderate and considerate representation, and all the 
gentle magnanimity of a Christian heart, and all in 
vain. Finally when our gallant seamen, reposing in 
fancied security, in the scorching blast of the treach- 
erous explosion, were cruelly and remorselessly slain, 
and calm investigation had developed the truth, we had 
been despicable on the historic page had we not ap- 
pealed to the God of Battles for retribution. The 
pious rage of seventy millions of people cried aloud to 
heaven for the piteous agony, for the shameful 
slaughter of our brethren. Our noble fleet was swiftly 
speeding to its duty. Poetic genius bodied forth the 
spirit of our navy as the mighty ships sped on their 
way. 

" In the winds that blow about me the voices of the dead 
Are calling to me, brothers, to urge my topmost speed. 
In the foam that's upward flying in whirling wreaths of 

white 
The wraiths of murdered brothers beckon onward to the 

fight." 

Let the waters of the Orient as they moan through 
the shell-riven wrecks at Cavite, the booming wave 
of the Caribbean, as fathoms deep it sweeps over 
Pluton and Furor, and breaks into spray on the shape- 
less and fire-distorted steel of Viscaya and Oquendo, 
tell how the navy has paid our debt to Spain. Nor 



EMORY SPEER 303 

is the renown which crowns the standards of our 
soldiery one whit less glorious. Nothing in the lucid 
page of Thucydides, nor in the terse " Commen- 
taries of Csesar," nothing in the vivid nan'ative of 
Napier, nor the glowing battle-scenes of Allison can 
surpass the story, how spurning the chapparal and the 
barbed wire, pressing their rifles to their throbbing 
hearts, toiling up the heights, and all the while the 
machine-guns and the Mausers mowing the jungle 
as with a mighty reaper, on, and yet right on, they 
won the fiery crests, and Santiago fell. America, our 
beloved countiy, humane in the hour of triumph, 
gentle to the vanquished, grateful to the Lord of Hosts, 
a reunited nation forever, well may thy people rejoice 
with the Royal Poet of Israel, 

"O sing unto the Lord a new song for He hatli done 
marvellous things; His right hand and His holy arm hath 
gotten Him the victory." 



JOKN" M. THURSTON 

[Extracts from a speech delivered in the Senate, March 24, 1898, 
by John M. Thurston, after having visited Cuba in company with 
Mrs. Thurston, who died on the journey. Mrs. Thurston's dying 
request to her husband was that he should lose no time on account 
of her death in doing his utmost to save and free Cuba and its 
people.] 



SPAIN'S HEARTLESS CRUELTY 

Mr. President, I am here by command of silent 
lips to speak once and for all upon the Cuban situation. 
I trust that no one has expected anything sensational 
from me. God forbid that the bitterness of a personal 
loss should induce me to color in the slightest degree 
the statement that I feel it my duty to make. I shall 
endeavor to be honest, conservative, and just. I have 
no purpose to stir the public passion to any action not 
necessary and imperative to meet the duties and ne- 
cessities of American responsibility. Christian human- 
ity, and national honor. I would shirk this task if I 
could, but I dare not. I cannot satisfy my conscience 
except by speaking, and speaking now. 

For myself, I went to Cuba firmly believing that 
the condition of affairs had been greatly exaggerated ; 
but there has been no exaggeration, because exaggera- 
tion has been impossible. After three years of war- 
fare and the use of 225,000 Spanish troops, Spain has 
lost control of every foot of Cuba not surrounded by 

304 



JOHN M. THURSTON 305 

an actual intrenchment and protected by a fortified 
picket-line. She holds possession with her armies of 
the fortified seaboard towns, not because the insurgents 
could not captiu-e many of them, but because they are 
under the virtual protection of Spanish warships, with 
which the revolutionists cannot cope. 

Under the inhuman policy of Weyler not less than 
400,000 self-supporting, simple, peaceable, defence- 
less country people were driven from their homes in 
the agricultural portions of the Spanish provinces to 
the cities, and imprisoned upon the barren wastes out- 
side the residence portions of these cities and within 
the lines of intrenchments, established a little way 
beyond. Their humble homes were burned, their fields 
laid waste, their implements of husbandry destroyed, 
their live stock and food supplies for the most part 
confiscated. Most of these people were old men, wom- 
en, and children. They were thus placed in hopeless 
imprisonment, without shelter or food. There was no 
work for them in the cities to which they were driven. 
They were left there with nothing to depend upon 
except the scanty charity of the inhabitants of the 
cities, and with slow starvation their inevitable fate. 

It is conceded upon the best ascertainable authority, 
and those who have had access to the public records 
do not hesitate to state, that upward of 210,000 of 
these people have already perished from starvation or 
from diseases incident to stan^ation. Such a spectacle 
exceeds the scenes of the infenio as painted by Dante. 

There is no relief and no hope except through the 
continued charity of the American people until peace 
has been fully restored in the island and until a hu- 
mane government has restored these people to their 
homes and has provided for them anew the means with 
which to begin again the cultivation of the soil. Spain 
cannot put an end to the existing condition. She can- 
not conquer the insurgents. She cannot re-establish 



306 PATEIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

her sovereignty over any considerable portion of the 
interior of the island. The revolutionists, while able 
to maintain themselves, cannot drive the Spanish army 
from the fortified seacoast towns. 

The situation, then, is not war as we understand it, 
but a chaos of devastation and depopulation of unde- 
fined duration, whose end no man can see. The pict- 
ures in the American newspapers of the starving re- 
concentrados are true. They can all be duplicated by 
the thousands. I never saw, and please God I may 
never again see, so deplorable a sight as the reconcen- 
trados in the suburbs of Matanzas. I can never forget 
to my dying day the hopeless anguish in their despair- 
ing eyes. Huddled about their little bark-huts, they 
raised no voice of appeal to us for alms as we went 
among them. 

The government of Spain has not appropriated one 
dollar to save these people. They are now being at- 
tended, and nursed, and administered to by the charity 
of the United States. Think of the spectacle — we are 
feeding these citizens of Spain; we are nursing their 
sick; we are saving such as can be saved, and yet there 
are those who still say it is right for us to send food, 
but we must keep hands off. I say that the time has 
come when muskets ought to go with the food. 

We asked the Governor if he knew of any relief for 
these people except through the charity of the United 
States. He did not. We then asked him, " Can you 
see any end to this condition of affairs? " He could 
not. We asked him, " Wlien do you think the time 
will come that these people can be placed in a position 
of self-support?" He replied to us, with deep feel- 
ing, " Only the good God, or the great Government 
of the United States can answer that question." I 
hope and believe that the good God, by the great Gov- 
ernment of the United States, will answer that ques- 
tion. 



joim M. THURSTON 307 

I shall refer to these horrible things no further. 
The\ are there; God pity me, I have seen them; they 
will remain in my mind forever — and this is almost 
the twentieth century. Christ died nineteen hundred 
years ago, and Spain is a Christian nation. She has 
set up more crosses in more lands, beneath more skies, 
and under them has butchered more people than all 
the other nations of the earth combined. Europe may 
tolerate her existence as long as the people of the Old 
World wish. God grant that before another Christ- 
mas morning the last vestige of Spanish tyranny and 
oppression wdll have vanished from the Western Hemi- 
sphere. 

I counselled silence and moderation from this floor 
when the passion of the nation was at white heat over 
the destruction of the Maine; but the time for ac- 
tion has now come. ISTot action in the Maine case 
— I hope and trust that this Government will take 
action on the Cuban situation entirely outside of the 
Maine case. When the Maine report is received, 
if it be found that our ship and sailors were blown 
up by some outside explosion, we mil have ample 
reparation without quibble or delay. And if the ex- 
plosion can be traced to Spanish officials, there will 
be such swift and terrible punishment adjudged as 
will remain a warning to the world forever. 



II. 

TIME FOR ACTION 

The time for action has, then, come. No greater 
reason for it can exist to-morrow than exists to-day. 
Every hour's delay only adds another chapter to the 
awful story of misery and death. Only one power can 
intervene — the United States of America. Ours is 



308 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

the one great nation of the E'ew "World, the Mother 
of American Kepublics. She holds a position of trust 
and responsibility toward the peoples and the affairs 
of the whole Western Hemisphere. It was her glori- 
ous example which inspired the patriots of Cuba to 
raise the flag of liberty on her eternal hills. We can- 
not refuse to accept this responsibility which the God 
of tlie universe has placed upon us as the one great 
power in the New World. We must act. What shall 
our action be ? 

Mr. President, there is only one action possible, if 
any is taken; that is, intervention for the indepen- 
dence of the island ; intervention that means the land- 
ing of an American army on Cuban soil, the deploy- 
ing of an American fleet off the harbor of Havana; 
intervention which says to Spain, " Leave the island, 
withdraw your soldiers, leave the Cubans, these broth- 
ers of ours in the New World, to form and carry on 
government for themselves." Such intervention on 
our part would not of itself be war. It would undoubt- 
edly lead to war. But if war came it would come by 
act of Spain in resistance to the liberty and the inde- 
pendence of the Cuban people. 

Some say that these Cubans are incapable of self- 
government; that they cannot be trusted to set up a 
republic. Will they ever become better qualified 
under Spanish rule than they are to-day? Some time 
or other the dominion of kings must cease on the West- 
ern Continent. 

Mr. President, there was a time when " jingoism " 
was abroad in the land, when sensationalism prevailed, 
and when there was a distinct effort to inflame the 
passions and prejudices of the American people and 
precipitate a war with Spain. That time has passed 
away. " Jingoism " is long since dead. The Ameri- 
can people have waited and waited, and waited in pa- 
tience; yea, in patience and confidence — confidence 



JOHN M. THURSTON 309 

in the belief that decisive action would be taken in due 
season and in a proper way. To-day all over tins land 
the appeal comes up to us; it reaches us from every 
section and from every class. That appeal is now for 
action. Intervention means force. Force means war. 
War means blood. But it will be God's force. "When 
has a battle for humanity and liberty ever been won 
except by force? What barricade of wrong, injustice, 
and oppression has ever been carried except by force? 

Force compelled the signature of unwilling royalty 
to the Magna Charta; force put life into the Declara- 
tion of Independence and made effective the Eman- 
cipation Proclamation; force beat with naked hands 
upon the iron gateway of the Bastile and made re- 
prisal in one awful hour for centuries of kingly crime ; 
force waved the flag of revolution over Bunker Hill 
and marked the snows of Valley Forge with blood- 
stained feet; force held the broken line at Shiloh, 
climbed the flame-swept hill at Chattanooga, and 
stormed the clouds on Lookout Heights ; force marched 
with Sherman to the sea, rode with Sheridan in the 
Valley of the Shenandoah, and gave Grant victory at 
Appomattox; force saved the Union, kept the stars 
in the flag, made " niggers " men. 

The time for God's force has come again. Let the 
impassioned lips of American patriots once more take 
up the song : 

" In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me ; 
As He died to make men holy let us die to make men free, 
While God is marching on." 

Others may hesitate, others may procrastinate, others 
may plead for further diplomatic negotiations which 
mean delay, but for me, I am ready to act now, and for 
my action I am ready to answer to my conscience, my 
country, and my God. 



310 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

Mr. President, in the cable that moored me to life 
and hope the strongest strands are broken. I have but 
little left to oifer at the altar of freedom's sacrifice, 
but all I have I am glad to give. I am ready to serve 
my country as best I can — in the Senate or in the field. 
My dearest hope, my most earnest prayer to God, is 
this, that when death comes to end all I may meet it 
calmly and fearlessly, as did my beloved, in the cause 
of humanity, under the American flag. 



HUM AN ITT 8 CAUSE TRIUMPHANT 

[From a speech delivered at the Peace Jubilee at Washington, 
May 25, 1899.] 

Fellow-citizens, the inspiring demonstration of 
the past three days does credit alike to the patriotism 
of the American people and the energy and efiiciency 
of the managers of this grand Peace Jubilee. We have 
cause to rejoice! Victory has crowned our arms. The 
last vestige of kingly rule has disappeared from the 
Western Hemisphere. The cause of humanity is 
triumphant; the world applauds, and the shield of the 
nation is without a stain. Five times the American 
people have waged war. Never for conquest; never 
for dominion; never for martial glory; never for un- 
worthy or ignoble purpose. The soul of the United 
States is as white as the snow of the inaccessible peaks ; 
as pure as the limpid mountain torrents ; as serene as the 
eternal stars. 

First we fought for independence — to establish the 
God-given right of self-government. Next to protect 
our sailors on the high seas, by making the deck of an 
American ship American soil. Then that the citizens 
of Texas might of their own free-will place their lone 
star in the diadem of the Republic. Again for the 



JOHN M. THURSTON 311 

preservation of the Union and the enfranchisement of a 
race; and, last, that the power of a great, free people 
might go out like the benediction of heaven to bring 
liberty and justice and hope to the oppressed and 
tyranny-ridden inhabitants of the islands of the sea. 

Blood has been shed; treasure has been poured out 
that men might be ennobled, humanity uplifted, and 
God's omnipotent decree fulfilled. When Dewey 
sailed into the harbor of Manila; when white men 
and black men charged the San Juan Hill; when 
Sampson and Schley pursued the Spanish fleet along 
the Cuban coast, civilization awoke to the knowledge 
of the divine footsteps marching on. 

Peace, blessed peace, is with us once again; and what 
inestimable blessings it brings ! In the white heat of a 
new baptism of fire sectionalism has been blotted out 
forever. The blue and the gray have marched side by 
side under the one flag; white and black have stood 
shoulder to shoulder; and henceforth, from sea to sea, 
from lake to gulf, we are one people, glorying in a 
common destiny. We have challenged the admiration 
of the world. We have won the respect of all Chris- 
tendom. The United States stands sponsor for a hemi- 
sphere, and we lead the vanguard of humanity's 
advance. 

Men and governments pass away, but the glory of 
great deeds lives on forever. Such heroes as Washing- 
ton, Grant, and Dewey ; such statesmen as Lincoln aiul 
McKinley, take their place with the immortals. New 
duties and responsibilities are upon us. Not of our seek- 
ing, but forced by the unexpected and unforeseen fort- 
unes of a holy war. Are we not strong enough, brave 
enough, wise enough, humane enough, to meet them 
and master them and shape them into blessings? Dare 
we not turn wide-open, fearless eyes to scan the expand- 
ing horizon of the twentieth century? 

Let cowards falter and pessimists bewail. The 



312 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

world moves. The Republic lives. God reigns; and in 
the sunshine of His guidance we go marching on — on 
under a flag that symbolizes the highest aspirations of 
the human race. Washington made it the flag of inde- 
pendence; Lincoln made it the flag of liberty; McEn- 
ley has made it the flag of man's humanity for man — 
until to-day, on land and sea, the wide world round, 
serenely uplifted toward the empyrean blue — kissed 
by the sun of day, wooed by the stars of night, feared 
by t}Tants, beloved of mankind — it tranquilly floats, 
the unconquered flag of the greatest nation of the earth. 



CHARLES E. TOWNE 

[Extracts irom a speech delivered at the University of Michigan* 
February 22, 1899. J 

I. 

" LEST WE FORGET " 

The possession of the Philippine Islands was in no 
way necessary to the success of the war nor within its 
purpose. Admiral Dewey went to Manila in pursuance 
of his well-known instructions to " find the Spanish 
fleet and destroy it." In his subsequent operations he 
was assisted by the insurgent Filipinos, who were en- 
gaged, like the rebels of Cuba, in an effort to throw off 
the yoke of Spain, if possible a more heavy burden and 
a more odious tyranny in the Philippines than in the 
Antilles. 

Said Admiral Dewey on the 27th of June, " I have 
given the insurgents to understand that I consider them 
as friends, because we oppose a mutual enemy." Tlio 
publications of the Government show beyond all ca^^l 
that whatever mental reservations the Washington 
authorities may have found it consistent with their 
ideas of honorable diplomacy to entertain, our repre- 
sentatives immediately in contact \v\i\\ Emilio Agui- 
naldo and his coadjutors treated the insurrectionists as 
allies, and that we were honorably bound to respect the 
relation. 

Such was the situation when they organized a gov- 
313 



314 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

eminent, declared themselves free and independent, 
adopted a constitution, raised and maintained an army, 
collected revenues, conducted military operations ac- 
cording to the laws of war, and captured and held many 
thousands of Spanish prisoners. During all this time 
they made no mystery of the sacred object of their en- 
deavor. They were striving for independence, for the 
overthrow of the Spanish power and the establishment 
of a Philippine republic. They eagerly welcomed the 
sailors and soldiers of the United States, and gladly ac- 
cepted and returned our assistance. 

My friends, if under such circumstances we harbored 
against our allies a secret intention of snatching from 
their grasp the hard-won reward of all their suffering 
and valor as soon as it should come within their reach ; 
if we deceived and profited by their confidence only to 
force upon them the milder, though scarcely less wel- 
come overlordship of the United States in the place of 
the Spanish despotism they rebelled against; if, in 
short, we led these people up to a near view of freedom 
only at last to give them a change of masters — then may 
God forgive us and in some way shield us from the 
retribution we deserve and that all history teaches us 
we must else receive ! For such an act would be worse 
than Punic faith, a deed without a name, in the pres- 
ence of which the garnered trophies of a hundred years 
would fall to ashes and the sun of the Eepublic set in 
blackness forever. 

We have not conquered the Filipinos, we have 
bought them. Theirs is not even the poor satisfaction 
of figuring among the spoils of honorable war. They 
are the sorry chattels of a higgling bargain-and-sale 
between the banknipt monarchy of Charles the Fifth 
and the recreant Republic of George Washington. 
The condition of affairs in the Philippine Islands at this 
moment constitutes the ineffaceable stain upon the 
honor of this country. Having bought out the shadowy 



CHARLES E. TOWNE 315 

and unstable authority of Spain we have succeeded to 
her equity in this rebellion, or, rather let us say, to her 
inequity, for we have long since given full recognition 
of the justice of the rebellion. Oh ! the magic power of 
gold. By paying $20,000,000 of it we have trans- 
formed patriotism into treason, our allies into rebels. 
The very men whose aspirations for liberty a few short 
months ago we supported with our army and navy, we 
are to-day engaged in shooting to death. 

But it is said that the present hostilities were begun 
by the Filipinos. The facts are not quite so well au- 
thenticated as could be wished, especially in view of 
the claim of Agoncillo that the Americans were the 
aggressors and precipitated the difficulty for the pur- 
pose of influencing the then pending vote in the United 
State Senate on the treaty ratification, and considering 
also the "^agilant censorship of the cable maintained by 
our military authorities. But accepting the statement 
as true, where rests the ultimate responsibility? Does 
it not lie against us for not having long before given to 
the people of those islands an assurance that they 
should have the right of instituting and maintaining 
a government of their own? That is what they have 
been fighting Spain for. That is the only thing they 
desire. Why was not the assurance given ? My answer 
is, because the powers that be in this country did not in- 
tend to allow the Filipinos to govern themselves, and 
will never hereafter grant them their independence un- 
less compelled to do so by the liberty-loving people of 
the United States. 



316 PATKIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

n. 

COLONIALISM 

Senatoe Davis, chairman of the Senate Committee 
on Foreign Relations and one of the Paris Peace Com- 
missioners, has declared that in his judgment the gov- 
ernment of the Philippines should be along the general 
lines of that of the English crown colonies. Nobody 
jDroposes to form territories preparatory to statehood. 
Situated in the tropics, they can never become colonies 
in the true sense, because our people cannot occupy and 
possess them. The only alternative to granting them 
their freedom and the right, subject to a limited pro- 
tectorate by the United States, to establish and main- 
tain a government of their own, is to hold them in- 
definitely as a subject nation, as a dependency under 
military control. 

The objections to any such system are numerous and 
very serious. Waiving now the question of power, al- 
though I think it plain that under the Constitution 
there is no authority in the Government of the United 
States to establish a colonial system, overwhelming con- 
siderations of the highest duty and expediency seem to 
me absolutely to condemn the project and to counsel 
the obligation, wisdom, and advantage of permitting 
the Philippines to organize and maintain a free, stable, 
and independent government of their own under the 
protectorate of the United States. 

It is not too late to do this. The unfortunate break- 
ing out of hostilities between us and them does not 
commit us to the extermination of the Filipinos. It is 
never too late to be just. There is no obligation upon 
this great nation, such as might to an inconsequential 
state arise out of a false sense of pride, to carry on the 
slaughter already begun. It is still possible to listen 



CHARLES E. TOWNE 317 

to the dictates of humanity, and it ought to be easy to do 
so when humanity squares with interest. 

The ratification of the treaty, now complete except 
as to the exchange of formalities, has made the ques- 
tion a domestic one. In his speech at Boston the other 
night the President said that the subject now rests with 
the American people; and surely we should be broad 
enough and big enough to deal with it in a spirit of 
sobriety and righteousness. There is a disposition in 
some quarters to regard the whole matter as finally dis- 
posed of by the formal acceptance of sovereignty over 
the Philippines under the treaty; and unquestionably it 
well suits the designs of certain persons to propagate 
that impression as widely as possible. 

But this status cannot be permitted to remain. The 
conscience of our people will revolt against a war of 
" criminal aggression " in the Philippines. Even they 
who counselled violence in the beginning will be com- 
pelled by awakening public sentiment to accept accom- 
modation by and by, making merit of a tardy virtue in 
the spirit of that character of Euripides, who says, " If 
it be needful to resort to injustice in order to attain 
power, let us have recourse to it; but under all other 
circumstances let us be honest." 

The whole scheme of colonialism is out of harmony 
with our institutions. It belongs to imperialism, not 
to republicanism. !No republic ever ruled colonies 
otherwise than oppressively. It has been repeatedly 
pointed out that the attempt led to the downfall of the 
Athenian democracy and transformed the Republic of 
Rome into an empire. There would be an infinite 
demoralization to domestic peace and progress in the 
contemplation of a portion of our domain cut off from 
the privileges of liberty and the rights of self-govern- 
ment. 

Every advance that freedom has ever made has been 
gained by sacrifice and maintained only by vigilance. 



318 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

History and analogy teach us that tyranny would 
sooner travel from the Philippines to the United States 
than liberty would travel from the United States to the 
Philippines. It is amazing to notice to what an extent 
even the tentative establishment of absolutism in the 
Philippines has corrupted public sentiment. It has 
already lowered the high ideals of the olden times. It 
has taught many of us a new language, the language of 
the despot and the bully. 

Why, our fathers, in words that rang round the 
world and, even if we prove recreant, shall echo 
through all time, declared that the power which it is 
now proposed we should use over the Filipinos can 
never under any circumstances be rightfully exercised 
by anybody over anybody else. Almost every line of 
the Declaration of Independence is an indictment 
against this proposed system of misgovemment in the 
Philippine Islands. 



HEISTRY VAN DYI^ 

[Extracts from a sermon delivered on Thanksgiving Day, 1898. ] 

I. 

THE AMERICAN BIRTHRIGHT AND THE 
PHILIPPINE POTTAGE 

This is the most important Thanksgiving Day that 
has been celebrated by the present generation of Ameri- 
cans. Three and thirty years have rolled away since we 
gave thanks for the ending of the Civil War. Never 
since that time has our national religious festival been 
observed under such brilliant sunlight of prosperity or 
with such portentous clouds of danger massed along the 
horizon. 

It is a siginficant Thanksgiving, because we have 
extraordinary causes for national gratitude. The first 
and greatest of these causes is the superabundant har- 
vest with which, for the second year in succession, God 
has rewarded the patient toilers who are the strength 
and pride of our country. This harvest includes, not 
only the fruits of the earth, but also the manifold prod- 
ucts of human industry. The true power of a nation 
is in the character of its workers. The true glory of a 
nation is in the quality of their workmanship. The 
true prosperity of a nation is in the reward which God 
bestows upon their work. For this reward, far greater 
than it has ever been before in our history, let us give 
our first and our deepest thanks. 

319 



320 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

The second cause for gratitude to-day is the new evi- 
dence that we have received of the union of the whole 
American people in loyalty and patriotism. The gap- 
ing wounds left by the Civil War have closed. There 
is no bloody chasm between the North and the South. 
The President presides over a united country, respond- 
ing as one man to a call to support the national honor; 
and the brave men who once wore the gray uniform are 
ready to march again beside the " boys in blue " under 
the starry flag of American freedom. For this glori- 
ous restoration of the spirit of national unity let us give 
joyous and united thanks. 

The third cause for gratitude is the renewal of cor- 
dial amity between the two leading nations of the 
world — Great Britain and the United States. The 
clouds of jealousy and distrust which have so often 
risen between England and America seem to have 
faded entirely away. These two sister countries, repre- 
senting in widely different political forms the tri- 
umphant spirit of Anglo-Saxon civilization, rejoice to- 
gether in the clear sunlight of warm and vital sym- 
pathy. Such a friendship is nobler and more secure 
than any kind of partnership. A true and open amity 
between Great Britain and the United States, undis- 
turbed by any rivalries in the dangerous business of im- 
perial conquest, unthreatened by any secret and selfish 
compact to divide the spoils of ten-itorial war, would 
be a powerful guarantee of the peace of the world. For 
this unchartered friendship with our kinsmen across 
the sea let us give sincere and prudent thanks. 

The fourth cause for thanksgiving to-day is the 
signal victory that has been granted to our country's 
arms in a war undertaken for the destruction of the 
ancient Spanish tyranny in the Western Hemisphere 
and the liberation of the oppressed people of Cuba. 
How reluctantly the American people took up the 
cross of war after thirty-three years of peace none can 



HENEY VAN DYKE 321 

know except those who have read the peace-loving 
heart of the great silent classes, the happy, industrious, 
prosperous classes of our country. The call of human- 
ity was the only summons that could have roused them ; 
the cause of liberty was the only cause for which they 
would have fought. No party, no administration could 
have received the loyal support of the whole people 
unless it had written on its banner the splendid motto, 
" Not for gain, not for territory, but for freedom and 
human brotherhood ! " That avowal alone made the 
war possible and successful. For that cause alone 
Christians could pray with a sincere heart, and moth- 
ers give their sons to death by slaughter or disease, and 
lovers of liberty take up the unselfish sword. 

The cause is won; the last vestige of the Spanish 
power in the Western Hemisphere is broken; Cuba is 
free. Proud of the splendid discipline and courage 
and compassion of our navy, proved at Manila and San- 
tiago ; proud of the personal bravery of the true heroes 
in our army who endured unknown hardships, and were 
patient under incredible difficulties, and who faced 
with equal daring the pestilence that walked in dark- 
ness through the camps of death and the invisible bul- 
lets that sang through the cruel sunlight of Guan- 
tanamo and San Juan Hill ; proud and glad of all that 
American soldiers and sailors have done this year in the 
cause of liberty — we present our offerings upon the 
solemn altar of gratitude. For the divine guidance 
and protection, without which a victory so complete 
and swift, even over an inferior foe, could never 
have been won, let us give most humble and hearty 
thanks. 



322 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

II. 

A MOMENTOUS PROBLEM 

But this Thanksgiving Day is not significant alone 
in its causes for gratitude. It is an important day, a 
marked day, an immensely serious day because it finds 
us, suddenly and without preparation, face to face with 
the most momentous and far-reaching problem of our 
national history. Are the United States to continue as 
a peaceful Republic, or are they to become a conquer- 
ing empire ? Is the result of the war with Spain to be 
the banishment of European tyranny from the West- 
em Hemisphere, or is it to be the entanglement of the 
Western Republic in the rivalries of European king- 
doms? Have we set the Cubans free, or have we lost 
our own faith in freedom? Are we still loyal to the 
principles of our forefathers, as expressed in the Dec- 
laration of Independence, or are we now ready to sell 
the American birthright for a mess of pottage in the 
Philippines? 

Mne months ago no one dream^ed of such a question. 
ISTot one American in five hundred could have told you 
what or where the Philippines were ; if anyone thought 
of their possession as a possible result of the war, he 
kept the thought carefully concealed. Six months ago, 
while Admiral Dewey's triumphant fleet was resting in 
Cavite Bay, there were not fifty people in the country 
who regarded his victory as the first step in a career of 
imperial conquest in the Far East ; the question of re- 
versing a whole national policy and extending our 
dominion at one stroke of the sword over a vast and 
populous group of islands in the China Sea was utterly 
unconsidered. 

Without warning, without deliberation, and appar- 
ently without clear intention, it has been made the 



HENRY VAN DYKE 323 

burning question of the day. iSTever lias fate sprung a 
more trying surprise upon an unsuspecting and in- 
genuous people. Never has the most difficult problem 
of a great republic been met so hastily, so lightly or 
with such inconsiderate confidence. And as if to add 
to the irony of the situation, political leaders assure us 
not only that the question has been raised unintention- 
ally, but also that it has been already settled invol- 
untarily. Without any adequate discussion, without 
any popular vote, without any intelligent and responsi- 
ble leadership, by a mysterious and non-resident des- 
tiny, by the accident that a Spanish fleet destroyed on 
the 1st of May, 1898, was in the harbor of Manila in- 
stead of on the high seas, the future career of the 
American Republic has been changed irrevocably; the 
nation has been committed to a policy of colonial ex- 
pansion, and the United States of America have been 
transformed into the " United States and Conquered 
Territories of America and the China Sea." 

The proposal to annex, by force, or purchase, or 
forcible purchase, these distant, unwilling, and semi- 
barbarous islands is hailed as a new and glorious de- 
parture in American history. A new word — im- 
perialism — has been coined to define it. It is frankly 
confessed that it involves a departure from ancient 
traditions; it is openly boasted that it leaves the coun- 
sels of Washington and Jefferson far behind us forever. 
Because of this novelty, because of this separation 
from what we once counted a most precious heritage, I 
venture to ask whether this bargain offers any fit com- 
pensation for the loss of our American birthright? 
The arguments in favor of it may be summed up un- 
der three heads: the argument from duty, the argu- 
ment from destiny, and the argument from desperation. 

Undoubtedly we have incurred responsibilities by 
the late war, and we must meet them in a manly spirit; 
but certainly these responsibilities are not unlimited. 



324 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

They are bounded on one side by our rights. The very 
question at issue is whether we have a right to deny 
the principles of our Constitution by conquering un- 
\villing subjects and annexing tributary colonies to 
our domain. On the other side, our responsibilities 
are bounded by our abilities. It is never a duty to 
attempt a task which there is no prospect of perform- 
ing with real usefulness. We surely owe the Filipinos 
the very best we can give them consistently with our 
other responsibilities; but it is far from being certain 
that the best thing we can do for them is to make them 
our vassals. If that were true our whole duty would 
not be done, the humane results of the war would not 
be completed, until we had annexed the misgoverned 
Spaniards of Spain also. No argument drawn from 
our duty to an oppressed and suffering race can be ap- 
plied to the conquest of the Philippine Islands which 
does not apply ^vith equal and even with greater force 
to the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. 

The argument from destiny is not an argument; it is 
a phrase. It takes for granted all that is in dispute ; it 
clothes itself in glittering rainbows and introduces the 
question of debate in the disguise of a fact accom- 
plished. " Yesterday," says a brilliant orator, " there 
were four great nations ruling the world and dividing 
up the territories of barbarous tribes — Great Britain, 
Russia, France, and Germany — to-day there are five, 
for America has entered the arena of colonial con- 
quest." But how came the great Republic in that 
strange copartnership? By what device was she led 
blindfold into that curious company? "What does she 
there? What must she forfeit to obtain her share in 
the partition of spoils? That is the question. To talk 
of destiny is not to discuss, but to dodge the point at 
issue. 

The argument from desperation directly contradicts 
the argument from destiny. It presents the annexa- 



HENRY VAN DYKE 325 

tion of the Philippines, not as a glorious accomplish- 
ment, but as a hard necessity. We must do it because 
there is nothing else that we can do. A speaker less 
brilliant than the orator of the five nations, but more 
cautious, puts the case in a sentence: " We have got a 
wolf by the ears and we can't let go." The answer to 
this is simple. We have not got the wolf at present, 
though we are tr^dng our best to get hold of him. It is 
absurd to say that the only way for us to get out of our 
difficulties is to go into the enterprise of wolf -keeping. 
Nothing has yet been said or done which binds us to 
take permanent possession of these islands. Granting 
that the Philippines need a strong hand to set them in 
order, it has not been shown that ours is the only hand, 
nor that we must do it all alone. A protectorate for a 
limited time and with the purpose of building up a firm 
self-government would be one of the possible solutions 
of the difficulty. To pass this by and say that our only 
resort is to assume sovereignty of these yet uncon- 
quered islands is merely to beg the question. 

ISTo, these contradictory arguments from duty and 
destiny and despair do not touch the real spring of the 
movement for colonial expansion. It is the prospect of 
profit that makes those distant islands gleam before our 
fancy as desirable acquisitions. The argument drawn 
from the supposed need of creating and fortifying new 
outlets for our trade has the most practical force. It is 
the unconscious desire of rivalling England in her 
colonial wealth and power that allures us to the un- 
tried path of conquest; and this in spite of the fact that 
during the last seven years, England, with all her 
colonies, has lost five per cent, of her export trade, 
while the United States, without colonies, have gained 
eighteen per cent. It is a secret discontent with the 
part of a peaceful, industrious, self-contained nation 
that urges us to take an armed hand in the partition of 
the East and exchange our birthright for a mess of 
pottage. 



326 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

III. 

COLONIAL IMPERIALISM 

Every step in the career of colonial imperialism will 
bring us into conflict with our own institutions, and 
necessitate constitutional change or insure practical 
failure. Our Government, with its checks and bal- 
ances, with its prudent and conservative divisions of 
power, is the best in the world for peace and self-de- 
fence; but the worst in the world for what the Presi- 
dent called, a few months ago, '^ criminal aggression." 
We cannot compete with monarchies and empires in 
the game of land-grabbing and vassal-ruling. We 
have not the machinery; and we cannot get it, except 
by breaking up our present system of government and 
building a new fabric out of the pieces. Republics 
have not been successful as rulers of colonies. When 
they have entered that career they have changed 
quickly into monarchies or empires. The supposed 
analogy between England and America is a fatal illu- 
sion. British institutions are founded, as Gladstone 
has said, on the doctrine of inequality; American in- 
stitutions are founded on the doctrine of equality. If 
we become a colonizing power we must abandon our 
institutions or be paralyzed by them. Imperialism and 
democracy, militarism and self-government are con- 
tradictory terms. A government of the people, by the 
people, for the people is impregnable for defence, but 
impotent for conquest. When imperialism comes in at 
the door, democracy flies out at the window. 

Let us be on our guard against the flattering com- 
parison with England. The English people have a 
natural genius for governing inferior races — a steady 
head, an inflexible hand, and a superb self-confidence. 
What proof have we given of any such extra- 



HENRY VAN DYKE 327 

ordinary genius in our dealing with inferior races? 
Does the comparison of the treatment of the Indians in 
Canada and in the United States give us a comfortable 
sense of pride? Is the condition of drunken and dis- 
orderly Alaska a just encouragement to larger enter- 
prises ? Is our success in treating the Chinese problem 
and the negro problem so notorious that we must at- 
tempt to repeat it on a magnified scale eight thousand 
miles away? The rifle-shots that ring from Illinois and 
the Carolinas, announcing a bloody skirmish of races 
in the very heart of the Republic — are these the joyous 
salutes that herald our advance to rule eight millions 
more of black and yellow people in the islands of the 
Pacific Ocean? 

Expansion means entanglement; entanglement 
means ultimate conflict. The great nations of Europe 
are encamped around the China Sea in arms. If we go 
in among them Ave must fight when they blow the 
trumpet. Lord Salisbury says with characteristic 
frankness: " The appearance of the American Ee- 
public among the factors, at all events, of Asiatic, and 
possibly of European diplomacy, is a grave and serious 
event which may not conduce to the interests of peace, 
though, I think, in any event, it is likely to conduce 
to the interest of Great Britain." Colonial expansion 
means coming strife ; the annexation of the Philippines 
means the annexation of a new danger to the world's 
peace. The acceptance of imperialism means that we 
must prepare to beat our ploughshares into swords and 
our pruning hooks into spears, and be ready to water 
distant lands and stain foreign seas with an ever- 
increasing torrent of American blood. Is it for this that 
philanthropists and Christian preachers urge us to 
abandon our peaceful mission of enlightenment, and 
thrust forward, sword in hand, into the arena of 
imperial conflict? 

Men have told me that it is a useless task to discuss 



328 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

the question that we have been considering this morn- 
ing. It is too late. A distinguished diplomatist (one 
who beheves that the war with Spain might have been 
avoided if he had been given more time to complete his 
negotiations) said to me the other night, " You argue 
in vain. It is no more possible to check imperialism 
than it would be to stop the chip that has gone over 
Niagara Falls." I, for one, refuse to believe in the dis- 
astrous simile. There is still time to avert, or at least to 
modify, the catastrophe if the people will but realize 
what it means. There is still time to utter a sincere 
protest against the final commitment of the Republic to 
the new and perilous policy of undisguised imperialism. 
There is still time to call for a halt and an intelligent 
discussion, before an archipelago of conquered islands 
on the other side of the globe is made a permanent part 
of the domain of the United States of America. 

Anonymous patriots have written to warn me that it 
is a dangerous task to call for this discussion. It im- 
perils popularity. The cry of to-day is, " Wherever 
the American flag has been raised it never must be 
hauled down." The man who will not join that cry 
may be accused of disloyalty and called a Spaniard. So 
be it, then. If the price of popularity is the stifling of 
conviction, I want none of it. If the test of loyalty is 
to join in every thoughtless cry of the multitude, I de- 
cline it. I profess a higher loyalty — allegiance to the 
flag, not for what it covers, but for what it means. 

There is one thing that can happen to the American 
flag worse than to be hauled down. That is to have 
its meaning and its message changed. Hitherto it has 
meant freedom, and equality, and self-government, and 
battle only for the sake of peace. Pray God its mes- 
sage may never be altered. May the lustre of its equal 
stars never be dimmed by the shadow of the crowned 
imperial eagle. May its stripes of pure red and white 
never be crossed by the yellow bar sinister of warfare 



HENRY VAN DYKE 329 

for conquest. May it never advance save to bring lib- 
erty and self-government to all beneath its folds. May 
it never retreat save from a place where its presence 
would mean disloyalty to the American idea. May it 
float untarnished and unchanged, save by the blossom- 
ing of new stars in its celestial field of blue. May all 
seas learn to welcome it and all lands look to it as the 
emblem of the Great Republic; the mountain-peak of 
nations, lonely, if need be, till others have risen to her 
lofty standard. God keep her from lowering her flag 
from that proud solitude of splendor to follow the for- 
tunes of the conquering sword. God save the birth- 
right of the one country on earth, whose ideal is not to 
subjugate the world, but to enlighten it. 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 
THE BETTER PART 

[Delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, October 16, 1S98.] 

On an important occasion in the life of the Master, 
when it fell to Him to pronounce judgment on two 
courses of action, these memorable words fell from His 
lips: " And Mary hath chosen the better part." This 
was the supreme test in the case of an individual. It is 
also the highest test in the case of a race or a nation. 
Let us apply this test to the American negi'o. 

In the life of our Republic, when he has had the 
opportunity to choose, has it been the better or worse 
part? When in the childhood of this nation the negro 
was asked to submit to slavery or choose death and ex- 
tinction, as did the aborigines, he chose the better part, 
that which perpetuated the race. When in 1776 the 
negro was asked to decide between British oppression 
and American independence, we find him choosing the 
better part, and Crispus Attucks, a negro, was the first 
to shed his blood on State street, Boston, that the white 
American might enjoy liberty forever, though his race 
remained in slavery. 

When in 1814, at New Orleans, the test of patriot- 
ism came again, we find the negro choosing the better 
part, and General Andrew Jackson himself testifying 
that no heart was more loyal and no arm more strong 
and useful in defence of righteousness. When the 
long and memorable struggle came between Union and 
separation, when he knew tliat victory, on the one hand, 

330 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 331 

meant freedom, and defeat on the other his continued 
enslavement, with a full knowledge of the portentous 
meaning of it all, when the suggestion and the tempta- 
tion came to burn the home and massacre wife and 
children during the absence of the master in battle and 
thus insure his liberty, we find him choosing the better 
part, and for four long years protecting and supporting 
the helpless, defenceless ones intrusted to his care. 

When in 1863 the cause of the Union seemed to 
quiver in the balance and there was doubt and distrust, 
the negro was asked to come to the rescue in arms, and 
the valor he displayed at Fort "Wagner and Port Hud- 
son and Fort Pillow testifies most eloquently again that 
the negro chose the better part. When a few months 
ago the safety and honor of the Republic were threat- 
ened by a foreign foe, when the wail and the anguish 
of the oppressed from a distant isle reached his ears, we 
find the negro forgetting his own wrongs, forgetting 
the laws and customs that discriminate against him in 
his own country, and again we find our black citizen 
choosing the better part. 

If you would know how he deported himself in the 
field at Santiago, apply for an answer to Shafter and 
Roosevelt and Wheeler. Let them tell how the negro 
faced death and laid down his life in defence of honor 
and humanity; and w^hen you have gotten the full 
story of the heroic conduct of the negro in the Span- 
ish-American War, heard it from lips of Northern 
soldiers and Southern soldiers, from ex-abolitionist and 
ex-master, then decide within yourselves whether a race 
that is thus willing to die for its country should not be 
given the highest opportunity to live for its country? 

In the midst of all the complaints of suffering in the 
camp and field, suffering from fever and hunger, where 
is the ofiicial or citizen that has heard a word of com- 
plaint from the lips of a black soldier? The only re- 
quest that has come from the negro soldier has been 



332 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

that he might be permitted to replace tlie white soldier 
when heat and malaria began to decimate the ranks of 
the white regiment, and to occupy, at the same time, 
the post of gTeatest danger. This country has been 
most fortunate in her victories. She has twice meas- 
ured arms with England and has won. She has met 
the spirit of rebellion within her own borders and was 
victorious. She has met the proud Spaniard, and he 
lies prostrate at her feet. All this is well; it is 
magnificent. 

But there remains one other victory for Americans 
to win, a victory as far-reaching and important as any 
that has occupied our army and navy. We have suc- 
ceeded in every conflict except in the effort to conquer 
ourselves in the blotting out of racial prejudices. We 
can celebrate the era of peace in no more effectual way 
than by a firm resolve on the j)art of Northern men and 
Southern men, black men and white men, that the 
trenches which we together dug around Santiago shall 
be the eternal burial-place of all that which separates 
us in our business and civil relations. Let us be as gen- 
erous in peace as we have been brave in battle. Until 
we thus conquer ourselves, I make no empty statement 
when I say that we shall have a cancer gnawing at the 
heart of this Republic that shall one day prove as dan- 
gerous as an attack from an army from without or 
within. 

In this presence and on this auspicious occasion I 
want to present the deep gratitude of nearly ten mill- 
ions of my people to our wise, patient, and brave Chief 
Executive for the generous manner in which my race 
has been recognized during this conflict ; a recognition 
that has done more to blot out sectional and racial lines 
than any event since the dawn of our freedom. I know 
how vain and impotent is all abstract talk on this sub- 
ject. In your efforts to " rise on stepping-stones of 
your dead selves," we of the black race shall not leave 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 333 

you unaided. We shall make the task easier for you 
by acquiring property, habits of thrift, economy, intel- 
ligence, and character, by each making himscf of in- 
dividual worth in his own community. We shall aid 
you in this as we did a few days ago at El Cancy and 
Santiago, when we helped you to hasten the peace 
which we here celebrate. You know us. You are not 
afraid of us. When the crucial test comes you are not 
ashamed of us. We have never betrayed or deceived 
you. You know that as it has been so it will be, 
whether in war or in peace, whether in slavery or in 
freedom, we have always been loyal to the Stars and 
Stripes. 



THE NEGRO IN THE LATE WAR 

[From an address delivered at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago, October 
18, 1898.J 

With the close of the Spanish- American War we 
are likely to find ourselves a very much mixed nation — 
so much so that I fear it may be a little difficult for 
the white American to find and identify himself. In 
fact, I feel rather anxious about the white man in this 
respect ; but there is never any trouble about the negro 
in this regard, as he never gets lost in the mixture of 
races. We have a great advantage in this over the wliite 
man. You see, the instant it is proven that an indi- 
vidual has even one per cent, of African blood in his 
veins he becomes a negro — he falls to our pile in the 
count of races; the ninety-nine per cent, of Anglo- 
Saxon blood counts for nothing. We claim the man 
for our race, and we usually get him. It is a great sat- 
isfaction just now to belong to a race when white 
Americans are likely to find themselves intermingled 
with the Mongolian and the Malay from the Far East 



334 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

and the Latin races from the South — I say that under 
such cii'cumstances it is a supreme satisfaction to belong 
to a race that has such potential drawing power as is 
true of my race. 

If there is one class of our citizens that has a right 
to rejoice more than another over the outcome of our 
recent war, it is the American negro. You knew he 
could clear your forests, mine your coal, build your 
railroads and raise your rice, sugar-cane, and cotton — 
yes, more cotton than the world can consume, but you 
doubted whether or not he could be depended upon to 
fight for liberty, to defend the honor and safety of this 
Republic. At Santiago and El Caney you trusted the 
negro with the highest interests of this country. Did 
he disappoint you in enduring the heat and fever ? Did 
he disappoint you in the use of the bullet or the sword? 
As we measured up to the highest test of manhood at 
every point where we were trusted in connection with 
the Spanish- American War, in the same degTee we can 
be depended upon to defend and preserve the highest 
interests of this country whether in war or peace. 

During the last six months you have been testing us 
as if by fire, and you have it from the lips of Shafter, 
Roosevelt, and Wheeler, from the lips of N^orthern sol- 
dier and Southern soldier, that we did not fail you. 
Now we are going to turn the tables. We are going to 
put you on trial. We are going to prepare ourselves in 
property, thrift, economy, education, and character for 
the highest duties of citizenship. When we have so 
prepared ourselves as a race, we are going to ask that 
in every part of this country you accord us the same 
business and civil opportunities that you now extend to 
all classes and conditions who here find shelter and a 
home from foreign lands. 

My friends, as we celebrate peace, let us learn this, 
that God has been teaching the Spanish nation a terri- 
ble lesson. What is it? Simply this, that no nation 



BOOKER T. WASHINGTON 335 

can disregard the interest of any portion of its members 
without that nation growing weak and corrupt. 
Though the penalty may have been long delayed, God 
has been teaching Spain that for every one of her sub- 
jects that she has left in ignorance, poverty, and crime, 
the price must be paid; and if it has not been paid with 
the very heart of the nation, it has been paid with the 
proudest and bluest blood of her sons and with treasure 
that is beyond computation. From this spectacle, I 
pray God that America will learn a lesson in respect to 
the eight million negroes in the South. Amidst the ex- 
citement, the glamour, the interest, the deeds of hero- 
ism that have clustered around our war, let us not for- 
get that there is a condition in the southera part of our 
country that will demand our deepest thought and 
most generous help for years to come. 

The close of the Spanish-American War brings us 
new problems which, I believe, we will be able to solve. 
There is one supreme element of danger. The further 
we go as a nation in the direction of engrafting into our 
system of government the igiiorant and irresponsible 
inhabitants of foreign islands, the more ^\^ll we be 
tempted to depart from those principles which have 
made us great as a nation. There are some things too 
great, too precious to be measured by any standard of 
values. It seems to me that the highest duty which this 
nation owes to itself and its traditions is to put the 
negro in the South on that plane of intelligence and 
civilization where no man will be tempted to degrade 
himself by interpreting the Constitution as meaning 
one thing when applied to a black man, and anptlicr 
thing when applied to a white man. If we permit the 
ignorance and poverty of the negro in the South to 
warp and corrupt our laws and degrade the public con- 
science the result will soon be felt in all parts of the 
North, and the same hurtful influence will extend to 
our newly acquired territory. 



336 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

To be willing to defend one's country with his life, 
you say, is the highest test of patriotism and usefulness. 
Here you have a race but thirty-five years out of slav- 
ery, but a few hundred years removed from savagery. 
You place the negro soldiers of this race, on the one 
hand, by the side of the wealth and culture of New 
England and New York, on the other side of him you 
place the chivalry and intelligence of the South. In 
front of him you place the soldiery of one of the old- 
est and most renowned countries of Europe. In this 
position, with the highest type of Caucasian civiliza- 
tion on his right, on his left, and in front, you say to 
him, " Now, son of Africa, prove your right to be 
called a man, prove your claim to the title of Ameri- 
can citizen! " For answer, with a bravery and an 
impetuosity that shall ever live in song and story, with 
his country's national song, " My country, 'tis of thee," 
flowing from his lips, he scales the heights of San Juan 
and the battle is won for his country — but is it won for 
himself? 



HENRY WATTEESO:^' 
THE BIRTH OF GREATNESS 

[From a speech delivered at Louisville, Ky., Decoration Day, 
1899.] 

The duty which draws us together and the day — 
although appointed by law — come to us laden by a 
deeper meaning than they have ever borne before, and 
the place which witnesses our coming invests tlie occa- 
sion with increased solemnity and significance. Within 
the precincts of this dread but beautiful city — conse- 
crated in all our hearts and all our homes — for here lie 
our loved ones — two plots of ground, with but a 
hillock between, have been set aside to mark the rest- 
ing-place of the dead of two annies that in life were 
called hostile — the army of the Union, the army of the 
Confederacy. We come to decorate the graves of those 
who died fighting for the Union. Presently others 
shall come to decorate the graves of those who died 
fighting for the Confederacy. 

Yet, if these flower-covered mounds could open and 
the brave men who inhabit them could rise, not a? di:^- 
embodied spirits, but in the sentient flesh and blood 
which they wore when they went hence, they would re- 
joice as w'e do that the hopes of both have been at last 
fulfilled, and that the Confederacy, swallowed up by 
the Union, lives again in American manhood and 
brotherhood, such as were contemplated by the makers 
of the Republic. 

337 



338 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

To those of us who were the comrades and contem- 
poraries of the dead that are buried here, who survived 
the ordeal of battle and who live to bless the day, there 
is nothing either strange or unnatural in this, because 
we have seen it coming for a long time ; we have seen it 
coming in the kinship of ties even as close as those of a 
common country; in the robust intercourse of the 
forum and the market-place ; in the sacred interchanges 
of the domestic affections; but, above all, in the prattle 
of children who cannot distinguish between the grand- 
father who wore the blue and the grandfather who 
wore the gray. It is required of no man — whichever 
flag he served under — that he make any renunciation 
shameful to himself, and therefore, dishonoring to 
these grandchildren, and each may safely leave to his- 
tory the casting of the balance between antagonistic 
schools of thought and opposing camps in action, where 
the essentials of fidelity and courage were so amply 
met. 

l^or is it the part of wisdom to regret a tale that is 
told. The issues that evoked the strife of sections are 
dead issues. The conflict, which was thought to be 
irreconcilable, and was certainly inevitable, ended more 
than thirty years ago. To some the result was logical 
— to others it was disappointing — to all it was final. 
As no man disputes it, let no man deplore it. Let us 
rather believe that it was needful to make us a nation. 
Let us rather look upon it as into a mirror, seeing not 
the desolation of the past, but the radiance of the 
future; and in the heroes of the new North and the 
new South who contested in generous rivalry up the 
fire-swept steep of El Caney, and side by side re- 
emblazoned the national character in the waters about 
Corregidor Island and under the walls of Cavite, let 
us behold hostages for the old North and the old South 
blent together in a Union that knows neither point of 
the compass and has flung its geography into the sea. 



HENRY WATTERSON 339 

Great as were the issues we have put behind us for- 
ever, yet greater issues still rise dimly upon the view. 
Who shall fathom them? Who shall forecast them? I 
seek not to lift the veil on what may lie beyond. It is 
enough for me to know that I have a country and that 
my country leads the world. I have lived to look upon 
its dismembered fragments whole again; to see it, like 
the fabled bird of wondrous plumage upon the Arabian 
desert, slowly shape itself above the flames and ashes of 
a conflagration that threatened to devom* it; I have 
watched it gradually unfold its magnificent proportions 
through alternating tracks of light and shade. 

I have stood in awestruck wonder and fear lest the 
glorious fabric should fade into darkness and prove but 
the insubstantial pageant of a vision; when, lo! out 
of the misty depths of the far-away Pacific came the 
booming of Dewey's guns, quickly followed by the 
answering voice of the guns of Sampson and Shafter 
and Schley, and I said : " It is not a dream. It is God's 
promise redeemed. With the night of sectional con- 
fusion that is gone civil strife has passed from the scene, 
and in the light of the perfect day that is come the 
nation finds, as the first fruit of its new freedom, an- 
other birth of greatness and power and renown." 

Fully realizing the responsibility of this, and the 
duties that belong to it, I, for one, accept it, and all 
that it brings with it and implies, thankful that T, too, 
am an American. Wheresoever its star may lead, I 
shall follow, nothing loath or doubting, though it 
guide the nation's footsteps to the furthenuost ends of 
the earth. Believing that in the creation and the pres- 
ervation of the American Union the hand of the Al- 
mighty has appeared from first to last; that His will 
begat it, and that His word has prevailed; that in the 
War of the Revolution and in the Civil War the inci- 
dents and accidents of battle left no doubt where Provi- 
dence inclined; if the star that now shines over us, at 



340 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

once a signet of God's plan and purpose and a heaven- 
sent courier of civilization and religion, shall fix itself 
above the steppes of Asia and the sands of Africa, it 
shall but confirm me in my faith that " the judgments 
of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." 



EDWAED O. WOLCOTT 
THE WAR INEVITABLE 

[From a speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, April 
15, 1898.] 

Mk. Pbesident, the great mass of the people of this 
nation do not desire war, but they see no way how, 
under the Providence of God, it may be averted. They 
have stood, and stand to-day, loyally by the President. 
His position, frictional and difficult at best, has been 
administered by him as became an incumbent of that 
high office. Brave himself, he abhors war; but he ab- 
hors unrighteousness more. He has dealt in most cou- 
rageous fashion with that popular clamor which w^ould 
have been so easy for him to follow — a popular clamor, 
natural and patriotic and loyal, but necessarily unin- 
formed and unreasoning. All these influences he has 
met with that splendid conservatism which comes to all 
good men when responsibility and power are imposed 
upon them. He has met them, not alone with the cour- 
age of a man who has known the smoke of battle, but 
he has met them with the fortitude and courage of the 
Christian who desires to save, if possible, the lives of 
every American committed to his charge; and, Mr. 
President, that confidence and that affection and that 
respect have been reflected in the forbearance and tol- 
erance and courtesy of this body throughout all these 
trying weeks. 

But, Mr. President, when there came the awful ex- 
plosion in the harbor of Havana, a friendly port, in 

341 



342 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

time of peace, the die was cast. After that, what could 
be said? If that had stood alone, it is possible it might 
have been adjusted without war, but not by any method 
which the Spaniard has yet attempted. When such an 
outrage was committed there was but one duty left, and 
that was the duty of exculpation. If not, the only 
course of a self-respecting people must be to invoke the 
God of Battle. For the disaster to our battle-ship we 
want no money. There is nothing that can repair our 
wrong. Yes; one thing. If Spain would free Cuba 
to-day, we would offer up our two hundred and sixty 
sailors as an offering upon the altar of Cuban freedom. 
But because of that disaster unatoned for and unex- 
plained, the determination is burned into the hearts of 
the American people that war must come or Cuba be 
made free and independent. No other answer will be 
accepted. 

Mr. President, this national honor which we evoke is 
intangible, it is unwritten and unexpressed, but it has 
within it the force and the violence of the whirlwind 
and the storm. It is " that chastity of honor which 
feels a stain like a wound." The existence of it makes 
nations survive and fit to live. The loss of it makes na- 
tions fit to die and perish from the face of the earth. It 
is for these reasons that good men, hating war and 
loving peace, can see no way under heaven whereby 
war may now be avoided. This war is one which can 
bring us no material gain. It will bring us the loss of 
millions of dollars in our commerce. It will sweep our 
ships from the seas. It will create unrest in business. 
It will destroy industries. It will be followed by that 
lessening in morality which always accompanies the 
conclusion of a war. We will leave thousands of our 
young men dead of fever or by the bullet in the tropics, 
and we shall be fortunate if we are not compelled to 
face serious complications with other European coun- 
tries. 



EDWARD O. WOLCOTT 343 

All these things we must count in advance, and wc 
have counted them. And when the day of the result 
shall come and Cuba is free, we will have fought a 
country which can never indemnify us in land, a coun- 
try which can never indenmify us in money, for she 
has no money. We must find our only satisfaction, and 
it must be the supreme satisfaction of a free people, in 
this, that we have poured out our blood and our treasure 
to relieve the cry of suffering humanity. The war 
which is already upon us must be fought because it is 
the manifest destiny of this Republic to stand forever 
upon the Western Hemisphere a sentinel of liberty. It 
must come. For if we fail to listen to the voice of the 
suffering or the cry of the down-trodden upon this con- 
tinent, we shall be untrue to those principles of liberty, 
humanity, and Christianity upon which this country is 
founded as upon a rock. 



THE TREATY WITH SPAIN 

[From a speech made in the Senate of the United States, February 
4, 1899.] 

Me. President, in the months preceding the open- 
ing of hostilities the prospect of war with Spain had no 
charms for me, and now, in common with millions of 
the American people, I move with reluctant feet along 
the path which our national duty seems to point, not 
because I do not recognize the necessity of following it, 
but because it is new and untried. Within two months 
after the declaration of hostilities the Providence of 
God and the prowess of our soldiers and our sailors 
brought us overwhelming victory. The commissioners 
appointed by the President to negotiate a treaty were 
all men eminent for character, attainments, and ability. 
We may judge something of them by the three mem- 



344 PATRIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

bers of this Chamber, representing both political par- 
ties, who were chosen to serve upon that commission. 
There is not a member of the Senate who would not 
trust those gentlemen with the most intricate and deli- 
cate matters pertaining to his own personal welfare, or 
who does not recognize their eminent fitness for the 
negotiations with which they were intrusted. 

Tlie Constitution of the United States empowers the 
President to make treaties, subject to the concurrence 
of a vote of two-thirds of the Senate. This provision 
was inserted because our fathers believed that, however 
much we might differ on questions of internal policy, 
however much in the affairs of our own country we 
might dispute and argue, when we came to face a for- 
eign foe or our relations with other countries we would 
stand as a unit together, sinking and obliterating party 
and party lines. 

Never in the history of our country was it so im- 
portant as now that the Senate of the United States 
should present an unbroken front. We owe a debt to 
our kin across the sea that, perhaps, we may some day 
partially pay. When the war clouds lowered and the 
air was full of hate, our brothers in race, language, and 
destiny, in quiet English fashion took their place be- 
side us, elbow touching elbow, and back of us were the 
services of their trained diplomacy and their genuine 
and unqualified friendship; and had it not been for the 
moral support which Great Britain gave us during this 
conflict we would not have emerged from it without 
an international contest of large dimensions. Bar Eng- 
land, and there is not a country in Europe that is not 
hostile to us. They stood in sullen hate, hoping for our 
defeat; to-day they wait with eager and rapacious gaze 
for something to prevent our reaping the fruits of the 
treaty agreed upon by the commissioners of both 
countries. 

Mr. President, no matter what any man may say, this 



EDWAKD O. WOLCOTT 345 

war was a war solely of Immanitj. It cannot be too of- 
ten reiterated that it had its inception in unselfishness, 
and it finds its conclusion in equal unselfishness. The 
course of events, unexpected and necessarily unfore- 
seen, leaves us at the conclusion of this war charged 
with a duty toward nine million people in far-off, dis- 
tant seas. We found them cruelly oppressed by Spain. 
No man with bowels of compassion would want to turn 
them back to that country. We know but little about 
them. But it is believed by men at least as wise as we, 
that there exists there a condition which, if left to itself, 
would result in internecine strife, perhaps extending 
over a generation, with its accompaniment of bloodshed 
and murder and rapine, and that the people there are 
as yet apparently unfitted for self-government. 

They realize that if we to-day abandon those islands 
as a derelict upon the face of the waters we leave them 
open to the land-hunger and the greed of the countries 
of Europe, with the probability that our action would 
plunge the world into war. For one, I am willing to 
face the responsibilities of this treaty with all that 
its terms imply. We shall not put our hands on those 
people except to bless them. xVmerican institutions 
mean liberty and not despotism, and our dealings with 
those islands can only serve to lift them iip nearer into 
the light of civilization and of Christianity. ^ 

]\Ir. President, it has been frequently said in the 
progress of this discussion that our continued occu- 
pancy of those islands is contrary to the spirit of Ameri- 
can institutions. Wlio shall say this? This Republic 
represents the first and only experiment in_ absolute 
self-government by the Anglo-Saxon race, intermin- 
gled and re-enforced by the industrious of all the coun- 
tries of the Old World. For more than a hundred years 
we have endured, and every decade has brought us in- 
creasing strength and prosperity. Who is to say that in 
the evolution ^of such a Republic as this the time has 



346 PATKIOTIC ELOQUENCE 

not come wlieu the immense development of our in- 
ternal resources and the marvellous growth of our do- 
mestic and foreign commerce and a realization of our 
virile strength have not stimulated that Anglo-Saxon 
restlessness which beats with the blood of the race into 
an acti\aty which will not be quenched until we have 
finally planted our standard in that far-off archipelago 
which inevitable destiny has intrusted to our hands? 

Time alone can make clear the duty we owe our- 
selves and the people of the Philippines. To-day we 
face the question of rejecting or emasculating the con- 
clusions solemnly reached by the commissioners of 
Spain and the United States or of standing loyally by 
our Government. For myself there is but one path; 
to my vision, in the support of the Government alone 
lies honor. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

LYMAN ABBOTT. 

Lyman Abbott, editor, author, clergyman, was born in Roxbury, 
Mass. , December 18, 1835. He was graduated from the College 
of the City of New York in 1853, and received the degree of D.l). 
from Harvard. He entered upon the practice of law in Boston, 
but in 1860 was ordained a minister of the Congregational Church. 
He became pastor of a Congregational Church in Terre Haute, 
Ind., where he remained from 1860 to 1865. Then he took charge 
of the New England Church in New York City from 1865 to 1869. 
He then resigned his pastorate to devote himself to literature. He 
became editor of The Literary Record of Harpers Magazine, and 
associate editor with Henry Ward Beecher of The Christian Union. 
He succeeded Beecher as pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, 
in May, 1888, but resigned after a pastorate of ten years, and is 
now editor of The Outlook. He is author of the following works : 
"Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truth;" " A Lay- 
man's Story;" "Life of Christ;" "Evolution of Christianity;" 
" Dictionary of Religious Knowledge " (in connection with T. J. 
Conant) ; " Christianity and Social Problems ; " " Illustrated Com- 
mentary on the New Testament ; " " How to Study the Bible ; " 
"In Aid of Faith;" " A Study in Human Nature;" "The Life 
and Epistles of Paul; " and " Theology of an Evolutionist." His 
public addresses throughout the United States have created marked 
interest, and have been of a high character from the standpoint of, 
oratory. 

JAMES BURRILL ANGELL. 

James Burrill Angell, President of the University of Michi- 
gan, was born at Scituate, R. I., January 7, 1829. He was grad- 
uated from Brown University in 1849, and was Professor of Modern 
Languages and Literature there from 1853 to 1860. During the 
war he edited the Providence Journal. In 1866 he became Presi- 

347 



348 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

dent of the University of Vermont, and remained five years, when 
he was elected to the presidency of the University of Michigan. 
In 1880-81 he was United States Minister Plenipotentiary to China, 
and acted as commissioner in negotiating several treaties. In 1887 
he was a member of the Anglo-American Commission on Canadian 
Fisheries, and in 1896 was Chairman of the Canadian-American Com- 
mission on Deep Waterways from the Great Lakes to the sea. In 
1897 he received the appointment, under President McKinley, as 
Minister to Turkey, but resigned after a year of service. Presi- 
dent Angell is much sought by educational and other associations 
throughout the United States for public addresses. He is the 
author of numerous articles in leading reviews, and is authority on 
international law, on which subject he is lecturer in the University 
of Michigan. 

JOHN HENRY BARROWS. 

John Henrt Barrows, clergyman, and President of Oberlin 
College, was born in Medina, Mich , in 1847. He was graduated 
from Olivet College, Michigan, in 1867. Afterward he studied at 
Yale College, at Union and Andover Theological Seminaries, and 
at Gottingen, Germany. He received the honorary degree of D.D 
from Lake Forest University. He was pastor at Lawrence, Mass., 
and at Boston, and again for fourteen years at the First Presbyte- 
rian Church at Chicago. He organized and was president of the 
World's Parliament of Religions in 1893. In 1896 and 1897 he was 
lecturer in India in connection with the University of Chicago, and 
was lecturer at Union Theological Seminary, New York, in 1898, 
and on Comparative Religions at the University of Chicago. He 
became President of Oberlin College in 1899. He is author of the 
following works : " The History of the Parliament of Religions ; " 
"The World Pilgrimage;" "Christianity the World Religion;" 
"The Life of Henry Ward Beecher ; " "The Christian Conquest 
in India." He is in great demand as a lecturer on comparative 
religions and other religious and educational subjects, and is author 
of many articles in leading magazines. 

JAMES WHITFORD BASHFORD. 

James Whitford Bashford, President of the Ohio Wesleyan 
University, was born at Fayette, Wis., May 27, 18-19. He was 
educated in the public schools, and afterwards entered the Univer- 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 349 

eity ofWisconsin, from which he was graduated in 1873, and received 
the degree of A.M. in 1876. He received the degree of R.D. from 
the Boston University School of Theology. He was also graduated 
from the School of Oratory of that university in 1878, and was ap- 
pointed Lecturer on Oratory in the same school. In 1881 he received 
the degree of Ph.D. from the School of All Sciences of Boston 
University. In 1890 Northwestern University conferred upon him 
the degree of D.D. In 1874 he was appointed instructor in Greek 
in the University of Wisconsin. He was pastor of M. E. churches 
in Boston and Auburndale, Mass., Portland, Me., and Buffalo, 
N. Y. In 1889 he was elected President of the Ohio Wesleyan 
University. He is author of " The Science of Religion," and his 
addresses on various topics throughout the country are listened to 
with marked interest. 

ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE. 

Albert J. Beveridge, United States Senator from Indiana, was 
born in Adams County, Ohio, October 6, 18G2. After the Civil 
War the family removed to Illinois. He attended the common 
schools and the high school of Sullivan, 111. He then entered 
De Pauw University, Indiana, from which he was graduated in 1885. 
In his senior year he won the oratorical contest of his university 
and the Intercollegiate contest of the State of Indiana, and the 
same year the Interstate oratorical contest, held at Columbus, O., 
in which representatives of ten States participated. He then en- 
tered the law oflSce of Senator McDonald, of Indianapolis, m which 
he became managing clerk. Later he was admitted to the bar, and 
was associated with McDonald & Butler until he began practice 
alone. He became celebrated as a jury lawyer and won many im- 
portant cases. He persistently refused office, but was most active 
in every campaign in the State, and was sought by Republican com- 
mittees from other States as a most vigorous and popular cam- 
paigner. He made addresses before the Union League and Mar- 
quette Clubs of Chicago, the Alger Club of Detroit, and the leading 
clubs in Boston, New York, Pittsburg, and St. Louis. In 1898 he 
entered the Senatorial campaign in Indiana and was elected. Im- 
mediately thereafter he made a trip to the Far East, visiting China 
and our new possessions. On his return he entered the Senate, and 
was at once looked upon as the man be.st prepared to speak on the 
Philippine question. His speech was widely read and commented 
upon. 



350 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 



WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN. 

William Jennings Bryan was born at Salem, 111,, March 19, 
1860. He was educated in the public schools and at Whipple 
Academy, Jacksonville, III. He later entered Illinois College at 
Jacksonville, from which he was graduated in 1881, and from which 
he received the degree of A.M. in 1884. He was valedictorian of 
his class and was a very devoted student of oratory. He repre- 
sented Illinois College in the Intercollegiate contest of the State. 
He entered Union College of Law, Chicago, and was graduated in 
1883. He began the practice of law at Jacksonville, 111., where he 
remained four years. He then removed to Lincoln, Neb., which 
has since been his residence. He was a member of Congress two 
terms, from 1891 to 1895. He was nominated by the Democratic 
Party of his own State for Senator from Nebraska in 1893, and 
again in 1894, but was defeated in the Legislature. He became 
editor of the Omaha World- Herald in 1894. He was a delegate to 
the National Democratic Convention in 1896, wrote the silver 
plank in the platform and made the famous speech, which won 
him the Democratic nomination for President. During the cam- 
paign he travelled nearly twenty thousand miles, speaking almost 
constantly. He received 176 of the 447 electoral votes for Presi- 
dent. In 1897-98 he lectured throughout the country on various 
topics, chiefly bimetallism. In May, 1898, he organized the Third 
Regiment of Nebraska Volunteers for the Spanish War, and was 
appointed its colonel. He is the author of "The First Battle" 
and many magazine and newspaper articles, and is looked upon 
as the natural selection of his party for the Democratic nomination 
for 1900. 

DONELSON GAFFER Y. 

DoNELSON Caffery, United States Senator from Louisiana, was 
born in St. Mary's Parish in that State, September 10, 1835. He 
was educated at St. Mary's College, Maryland. He studied law in 
Louisiana, and was admitted to the bar there. He served in the 
Confederate Army throughout the Civil War. After the war, in 
addition to his law practice, he became actively engaged in the 
management of a large sugar plantation. He was a member of the 
State Constitutional Convention of 1879, became State Senator in 
1892, and in 1893 was elected to the Senate of the United States. 
His present term expires in 1901. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 351 



WILLIAM BOUREE COCKRAN. 

William Bocrke Cockran was born in Ireland, February 28, 
1854. He was educated in Ireland and France. In 1871 he came 
to the United States. He taught in a private academy, and after- 
ward became principal of public schools m Westchester County, 
New York. He then entered the profession of the law in the city 
of New York, where he soon became prominent in city politics. He 
became celebrated as an orator from speeches made at the Na- 
tional Democratic Conventions of 1884 and 1892. He was a mem- 
ber of Congress two terms, from 1891 to 1895, as a Democrat. But 
in 1896 he left the Democratic Party because of its views on the 
silver question, became an active supporter of William McKinley, 
and was sought throughout the country as a campaigner for that 
year. He is an eminent member of the New York bar, and has been 
active in many great cases of recent years. As a forensic orator 
he stands in the front rank. He is thoughtful, magnetic, virile, 
and one of the most captivating of popular speakers. 

ROBERT G. COUSINS. 

Robert G. Cousins, Congressman from Iowa, was born in Cedar 
County, la., in 1859. He received his education m the common 
schools and afterward entered Cornell College, Iowa, from which 
he was graduated in 1881. He was admitted to the bar in 1882, 
and has practised law since that time. He was elected to the Iowa 
Legislature in 1886, and was Prosecuting Attorney of his county 
from 1888 to 1890. Since 1893 he has been a member of Congress. 
His term expires in 1901. He is Chairman of the Committee on Ex- 
penditures in the Treasury Department. No one in Congress is 
more earnestly listened to. His speech on the Maine victims, con- 
tained in this volume, was widely read and commented upon 

SHELBY MOORE CULLOM. 

Shelbt Mooke Cullom, United States Senator from Illinois, 
was born m Wayne County, Ky., November 22, 1829. The next 
year his parents removed to Illinois. He received an academic edu- 
cation. In 1853 he went to Springfield to study law, and has since 
resided there. He was City Attorney and practised law untU 1865. 
In 1852 he was Presidential Elector on the Fillmore ticket ; was a 



352 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

member of the Illinois Legislature in 1856, 1860-61, 1872, 1873, 
and 1874. In 1861 and 1873 he was Speaker of the lower house. In 
1865-71 he was a member of Congress. In 1876 he became Gov- 
ernor of Illinois, which position he held seven years. Since 1883 
he has been United States Senator. His term expires in March, 
1901. In July, 1898, he was appointed by the President as one of 
the commissioners to establish a government in Hawaii, 

CUSHMAN KELLOGG DAVIS. 

Cdshman Kellogg Davis, United States Senator from Minne- 
sota, was born in Henderson, N. Y., June 16, 1838. He early re- 
moved to Waukesha, Wis. He received his preparatory education in 
the public schools, and was graduated from the University of Michi- 
gan in 1857. He entered upon the study of law and began practice 
in Waukesha, Wis. He served three years in the Union Army as 
lieutenant and assistant adjutant-general. After the war he re- 
moved to St. Paul, where he has since practised law. In 1867 he 
was elected a member of the Minnesota Legislature. In 1868 he 
was elected United States District Attorney for Minnesota, which 
position he held five years. In 1874 he was elected Governor of 
the State. In 1875 he was elected to the United States Senate; 
and again in 1887, in 1893, and in 1899. In 1898 he was appointed 
by President McKinley as a member of the Peace Commission to 
Paris. He is now Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. 
He is the author of " The Law in Shakespeare." Within the past 
two years he has been much sought by different organizations for 
public addresses on national topics. He is a very forceful and 
convincing speaker, is lofty in character and ideals, and conserva- 
tive and statesmanlike in his acts. 

CHAUNCEY MITCHELL DEPEW. 

Chauncet Mitchell Depew, United States Senator from New 
York, was born in Peekskill, N. Y., April 23, 1834. He was grad- 
uated from Yale College in 1856, and received his LL.D. in 1885. 
He was admitted to the bar in 1858. In 1861-62 he was a member 
of the New York Legislature, and was Secretary of State in 1863. 
The same year he declined the appointment as United States Min- 
ister to Japan. In 1866 he became attorney for the New York and 
Harlem Railroad, and in 1869 for the New York Central and Hud- 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 363 

son River Railroad, and m 1885 became President of that road. In 
1874 be became Regent of the University of the State of New York. 
In 1885 he declined election as United States Senator. He also 
declined the appointment of Secretary of State in the Harrison ad- 
ministration. In 1888 he was a prominent candidate for President 
in the National Republican Convention. In 1891) he was elected to 
the United States Senate. He has been distinguished for thirty 
years as an orator and after-dinner speaker. His speeches deliv- 
ered in commemoration of great events have been numerous and 
of a high character. In style he is direct and energetic, and holds 
the closest attention of his audience. 



JONATHAN P. DOLLIVER. 

Jonathan P. Dolliver was born near Kingwood, Preston County, 
W. Va., February 6, 1858. In 1875 he was graduated from the 
University of West Virginia. He immediately began the study of 
law, and m 1878 was admitted to the bar. He moved to Fort 
Dodge, la., where he has built up an extensive practice. He has 
been a member of Congress since 1889. He is one of the foremost 
speakers in the House, and is a leader in national affairs. 

JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES. 

John Temple Graves, journalist, orator, was born at Willing- 
ton, S. C, November 9, 1856. His grandfather of the same name 
was a heroic revolutionary officer ; his grandfather on his mother's 
side was a brother of John C. Calhoun. He was prepared for col- 
lege at Abbeville School, Georgia, and at Tuskegce, Ala., where 
he took prizes in composition and oratory. He was graduated from 
the University of Georgia in 1875, where he also won honors in 
scholarship and as a debater. After five years of teaching he re- 
moved to Jacksonville, Fla., where he became managing editor of 
The Dmon. He also established The Daily Herald, a leading factor 
in Florida politics. In 1887 he returned to Georgia and became chief 
editor of the Atlanta Journal, and then editor of the Rome (Ga.) 
Tribune for three years. In 1888 he was Democratic elector-at- 
large for Georgia, and led the State ticket. In 1890 he became 
general manager of the Colleton Land Company, organized to im- 
prove the Port Royal, S. C, seaport. That work done, he lias 
since devoted himself to the advocacy of certain reforms upon the 



354 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

platform and in the literary field. His addresses on " The South " in 
1890 at the banquets of the New York Southern Society, the Mer- 
chants' Club of Boston, and the New England Society at Philadel- 
phia, gave him national fame. He is a master of diction, poetic 
and robust, and his delivery is smooth-flowing, yet vigorous and 
fascinating. 

GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR. 

George Frisbie Hoar, United States Senator from Massachu- 
setts, was born at Concord, Mass., August 29, 1826. He was gradu- 
ated from Harvard in 1846, and later from the Dane Law School. 
William and Mary, Amherst, Yale, and Harvard all conferred upon 
him the degree of LL. D. He settled at Worcester, Mass. , and began 
the practice of law. In 1850 he became City Attorney. He was a 
member of the House of Representatives, Massachusetts, 1852, 
became State Senator in 1857, and was a member of Congress from 
1869 to 1877. He was one of the committee appointed by the 
House to conduct the Belknap impeachment trial in 1876. The 
same year he was a member of the Electoral Commission. In 
1877 he was elected to the United States Senate, and has been a 
member of that body ever since. His present term expires in 1901. 
In 1880 he was Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and is a mem- 
ber of many historical and scientific societies. No one in the 
Senate commands more earnest and respectful attention than this 
venerable statesman. 

CLARK HOWELL. 

Clark How^ell, editor and orator, was born in Barnwell County, 
S. C, September 31, 1863. He has lived in Atlanta, Ga., from 
boyhood. He was graduated from the University of Georgia in 
1883 In 1889 he succeeded Henry Grady as managing editor of 
The Atlanta Constitution, and became editor-in-chief in 1897. He 
was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives six years, 
and was Speaker in 1890-91. He has been a member from Georgia 
of the Democratic National Committee since 1892. He is much 
sought for on great occasions throughout the North. His speeches 
at the Peace Jubilee, Chicago; at Buffalo, N. Y. , and many other 
places, have established his reputation as a fervid and eloquent 
orator. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 355 



JOHN IRELAND. 



John Ireland, Archbishop of St. Paul, Minn., was born in 
Burnchurch, County Kilkenny, Ireland, September 11, 1838. lie 
came to the United States in boyhood. He was educated at the 
Cathedral School, St. Paul, Minn., afterward at the Petit Semi- 
naire, Meximeux, France, 1853-57. He studied theology at the 
Grand Seminaire Hyeres, France, 1857-61. He was ordained 
priest in 1861, became Chaplain of the Fifth Minnesota Regiment 
in the Civil War, Rector of the Cathedral of St. Paul, and Secre- 
tary and Coadjutor to Bishop Grace of St. Paul. He was conse- 
crated December 21, 1875. He has been prominent in establishing 
Roman Catholic colonies in the Northwest and in building up the 
Catholic University at Washington. He is well known as a lecturer 
on temperance. In 1869 he organized the first total abstinence 
society in Minnesota. He is much in demand, not only in this 
country but in France, England, and Ireland, as a speaker on 
popular topics. He is the author of " The Church and Modern 
Society." As an orator he is vigorous and dramatic. 

CHARLES E. JEFFERSON. 

Charles E. Jefferson was born in Cambridge, O., August 29, 
1860. He was graduated from Cambridge High School in 1877 as 
valedictorian of his class. He entered the Ohio Wesleyan Univer 
sity in the fall of 1878, and was graduated in 1882. He was noted 
in college as a writer and an orator, taking highest honors in iiis 
college and also in the Ohio Intercollegiate oratorical contest in his 
senior year. He was Superintendent of Schools at Worthington, 
O., for two years. While there he studied law with one of the 
ablest lawyers of the Columbus bar. He went to Boston in the 
fall of 1884 and entered the middle class of the Law School of 
Boston University. He came under the influence of Phillips Brooks 
and decided to give up the law and enter the ministry. He entered 
the Boston University School of Theology in 1884, and was gradu- 
ated in 1887. He was one of the speakers at commencement, lie 
immediately became pastor of the Central Congregational Church, 
Chelsea, Mass. He is possessed of marked qualities as a speaker, 
is highly intellectual, and has commendable energy and enthusiasm. 
He preaches with clear, forceful, and winsome eloquence. 



356 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 



SIR WILFRED LAURIER. 

The Right Honorable Sir Wilfred Laurier, Premier of Canada, 
was born at St. Liu, Quebec, November 20, 1841. He was edu- 
cated at L' Assumption College, McGill University. He received the 
degree of B.C.L. from that university in 1864. He became barris- 
ter in 1864, and Queen's Counsel in 1880. He entered Parliament 
in 1871, and was re-elected in 1874. He was defeated in the general 
election of 1878, but was immediately afterward, elected from Que- 
bec East. He was re-elected at the general elections of 1878, 1882, 
1887, 1891. He became leader of the Liberal Party in Parliament 
in 1891, and in 1896 was chosen Premier of Canada, the first French 
Canadian to hold that position. He was one of the guests of honor 
and one of the chief speakers at the laying of the corner-stone of 
the Government building in Chicago, October, 1899. 

WILLIAM LINDSAY. 

William Lindsay, United States Senator from Kentucky, was 
born in Rockbridge County, Va., September 4, 1835. He removed 
to Clinton County, Ky., in 1854. Four years later he began the 
practice of law at Clinton, Ky. He served in the Confederate 
Army throughout the Civil War. In 1867 he was elected State 
Senator. In 1870-78 was Judge of the Court of Appeals of Ken- 
tucky, and Chief Justice in 1876-78. He then established an office 
at Frankfort, Ky. In 1889 he became State Senator for Frankfort 
District. He was a member of the World's Columbian Commission 
from its organization to 1893. He was elected to the Senate of the 
United States in 1893 ; his term of office expires in 1901. 

HENRY CABOT LODGE. 

Henry Cabot Lodge, United States Senator and author, was 
born in Boston, May 12, 1850. He prepared for college in the 
Boston public schools. He was graduated from Harvard in 1871, 
and from Harvard Law School in 1875. He was admitted to the 
bar of Suffolk County, Mass., in 1876. He was a member of Con- 
gress in 1887-93, United States Senator in 1893, and was re-elected 
in 1899. Literature has been his profession. He is the author of 
'^ Essays on Anglo-Saxon Land Law;" "Life and Letters of 
George Cabot." He is editor of the Statesman Series, and has con- 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 357 

tributed the following books: "Daniel Webster;" "Alexander 
Hamilton; " and " George Washington." He is the author also of 
"Hero Tales from American History;" "Studies in History;" 
"History of Boston;" "Story of the American Revolution;" 
" Historical and Political Essays ; " " Ballads and Lyrics ;" " Short 
History of the English Colonies in America." He is a Tery forci- 
ble speaker, and is recognized as one of the most vigorous minds 
now in public life. 

JOHN DA VIS LONG. 

John Davis Long, Secretary of the Navy of the United States, 
was born at Buckfield, Oxford County, Me., October 27, 1838. He 
was graduated from Harvard in 1857. For two years he taught in 
Westford Academy, Massachusetts. He studied law in the Har- 
vard Law School and in private law ofBces. He was admitted to 
the bar, and has since practised in Boston. He was elected mem- 
ber of the Massachusetts Legislature 1875-78, and was Speaker the 
last two years. In 1879 he was elected Lieutenant-Governor and 
in 1880-82 was Governor of Massachusetts. He was a member of 
Congress three terms, from 1883-89, and was a member of the 
State House Construction Commission. He has been Secretary of 
the Navy under President McKinley since March, 1897. His con. 
duct of the department has been highly successful, as shown by the 
result of the recent war. He was appointed by the President to 
present the sword which was voted by Congress to Admiral Dewey. 
The speech of presentation is contained in this volume. 

WILLIAM McKINLET. 

William McKinley, President of the United States, was born 
at Niles, 0., January 29, 1843. He was educated in the public 
schools at Poland Academy and at Allegheny College. He after- 
ward taught in the public schools. In 1861 he enlisted as a pri- 
vate in the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He rose suc- 
cessively m rank from sergeant to second lieutenant, first lieu- 
tenant, captain, and finally was breveted Major of United States 
Volunteers by President Lincoln for gallantry in battle, March 13, 
1865. Afterward he was made acting assistant adjutant-general, 
First Division of the First Army Corps, and held this position until 
mustered out in 1865. He began the study of law in Mahorung 
County, and then took a course of law at the Albany Law School, 



358 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

New York. He was admitted to the bar in Ohio in 1867, and set- 
tled at Canton and began practice. In 1869 he became Prosecuting 
Attorney of Stark County. He served as a member of Congress 
from 1876 to 1891. As Chairman of the Committee on Ways and 
Means he reported the tariff bill of 1890, better known as the 
McKjnley Bill. He was defeated for Congress in 1890, but was 
elected Governor of Ohio in 1891, and re-elected in 1893. He was 
delegate at large in 1881 to the National Republican Convention, in 
which he was a member of the Committee on Resolutions. He was 
also delegate at large to the next two conventions, Chairman of the 
Committee on Resolutions 1888, and President of the Convention 
of 1892. He received 182 votes for the nomination for President 
in 1892, but would not allow his name to be considered, giving his 
support to Benjamin Harrison. In June, 1896, at the Republican 
Convention at St. Louis, he was nominated for President, and in 
November of the same year was elected by a plurality of 600,000 
votes, receiving 271 of the 447 electoral votes. As a speaker he is 
digmfied, magnetic, forceful. 

FRANKLIN MACVEAGH. 

Franklin MacVeagh was born in Chester County, Pa. He 
prepared for college in the public schools, and in 1862 was gradu- 
ated from Yale University. He then entered Columbia University 
Law School, from which he was graduated in 1864. The following 
year he removed to Chicago and engaged in the wholesale grocery 
business. He is one of Chicago's most public-spirited men, active 
in new enterprises, and is withal a gifted public speaker. 

GEORGE R. PECK. 

George R. Peck was born in Steuben County, N. Y., May 15, 
1843. He early removed to "Wisconsin. He was educated m the 
common schools. He received the degree of LL.D. from the Uni- 
versity of Kansas in 1887. He served as a private and then as 
captam in the First Wisconsin Heavy Artillery and Thirty-first 
Wisconsin Infantry from 1862 to 1865. After the war he began 
the study of law and was admitted to the bar of Wisconsin. He 
removed to Independence, Kans., where he practised from 1871- 
1874; then he removed to Topeka, Kans., where he practised from 
1874-93. Since that time he has resided in Chicago. From 1874- 



I 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 359 

79 he was United States District Attorney of Kansas ; from 1S81 -05 
he was General Solicitor of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fc 
Railroad. Since 1895 he has been General Counsel for the Chicago, 
Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway. In 1892 ho declined an ap- 
pointment to the United States Senate for an unexpired term from 
the State of Kansas. As a forensic orator he stands at the head of 
the Chicago bar. He has delivered many orations on public occa- 
sions, and no man in the West is more in demand as a speaker. 

REDFIELD S. PROCTOR. 

Rbdfield S. Proctor, United States Senator from Vermont, 
was born in Proctorsville, Vt., June 1, 1831. He was graduated 
from Dartmouth College in 1851, and later from the Albany, N. Y., 
Law School. He returned to his native State and began the prac- 
tice of law, and became the head of an extensive quarry. During 
the Civil War he served in the Union Army, rising from lieutenant 
to colonel. In 1867, 1868, and 1888 he was a member of the Legis- 
lature of Vermont. In 1874 and 1875 he was member and Presi- 
dent pro tern, of the State Senate, was Lieutenant-Governor of 
Vermont in 1876-78, and the next two years was Governor of the 
State. From 1889 to 1891 he was Secretary of War in President 
Harrison's Cabinet, and was elected to the Senate in 1891. In 
March, 1898, he visited Cuba, and his speech on the reconcen- 
trados, extracts from which are contained in this volume, attracted 
wide attention, and, coming as they did from a cool, conservative 
man, had great effect upon his fellow-Senators and members of the 
lower house. 

WHITELAW REID. 

Whitelaw Reid was born at Xenia, O., October 27, 1837. He 
was graduated from Miami University, Ohio, 1856, from which he 
afterward received the degrees A.M. and LL.D. He became edi- 
tor of the Xenia, O., News in 1858. He was legislative correspon- 
dent in 1860-61, war correspondent in 1861-62, and Washington 
correspondent to the Cincinnati Gazette from 1862 to 1868. He 
was aide-de-camp on the staffs of Generals Morris and Kosecrans in 
West Virginia, and was Librarian of the House of Representatives 
1863-66. He became a member of the editorial staff of the New 
York Tribune in 1868; managing editor in 1869; and editor-in- 
chief in 1872. He declined the appointment of United States Min- 



360 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

ister to Germany in 1877, and again in 1881. He became Minister 
to France in 1889-92. He was the nominee for Vice-President of 
the United States in 1892. He was appointed Special Ambassador 
of the United States on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Jubilee 
and was a member of the Peace Commission to Paris in 1898. 
He is the author of several works : "After the War;" "Ohio in 
the War;" "Newspaper Tendencies;" and " Schools of Journal- 
ism." He is much in demand to give addresses before educational 
and other organizations throughout the United States. 

CARL SCnURZ. 

Cakl ScHtTRZ was born at Liblar, near Cologne, Prussia, March 
2, 1829. He was educated at the Cologne Gymnasium, and the 
University of Bonn, and the degree of LL.D. was subsequently 
conferred upon him by Harvard. He became the publisher of a 
liberal newspaper at Bonn, but was compelled to leave Germany 
because he took part in revolutionary movements in 1848-49. He 
fled to Switzerland, was a newspaper correspondent at Paris in 
1851, and later a teacher in London. He came to America in 1852 
and settled in Wisconsin. He was nominated for Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor in 1857, and was member of the National Republican Con- 
vention in 1860. In 1861 he was appointed Minister to Spain, but 
resigned to enter the Union Army. He was appointed brigadier- 
general in 1862, and major-general in 1863. He commanded a 
division at Bull Run and Chancellorsville, and a corps at Gettys- 
burg. In 1865-66 he was correspondent at Washington of the New 
York Tribune^ and founded the Detroit Post in 1866. In 1869-75 
he was Senator from the State of Missouri. In 1872 he helped to 
organize the Liberal Party, and presided over the convention at 
Cincinnati which nominated Horace Greeley for President. In 1876 
he supported Hayes for President, and became a member of his 
Cabinet, as Secretary of the Interior. From 1881-84 he was one of 
the editors of the New York Evening Post, became one of the lead- 
ers of the independent movement in 1884, and supported Cleveland 
for President. He has been a contributor to Harper's Weekly since 
1892. He is the author of " The Life of Henry Clay," " Abraham 
Lincoln," " Speeches," etc. He is one of the great thinkers of the 
day, is a vigorous speaker, and makes many addresses before 
academic and other assemblies. 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 361 



CHARLES EMORY SMITH. 

Charles Emory Smith, Postmaster-General of the United 
States, was born at Mansfield, Conn., February 18, 1842. He was 
graduated from Union College in 1861. He was editor of the Al- 
bany Express from 1865 to 1870, and for the next ten years editor of 
the Albany Journa/. Since 1880 he has been editor of the Philadel- 
phia Press. He was Regent of the University of the State of New 
York 1879-80. In 1890-92 he was United States Ambassador to 
Russia. He has been delegate to several Republican national con- 
ventions. In 1897 he became a member of McKinley's Cabinet. 
He is one of the most interesting and effective orators in public life. 

EMORY SPEER. 

Emory Speer, United States .Judge of the Southern District of 
Georgia, was born at CuUoden, Ga., September 3, 1848. He 
served in the Confederate Army the last year of the Civil War. 
He is a graduate of the University of Georgia. He began the study 
of law, and was admitted to the bar in 1869. He became Solicitor- 
General for the State of Georgia; was member of Congress 1879- 
81, but, disagreeing with his party, he returned to Congress in 
1881 as an Independent and affiliated with the Republicans on pro- 
tection. In 1883-85 he was United States Attorney. He then 
became President of the Law Department of Mercer University- 
In 1885 he was appointed United States Judge. He is very promi- 
nent as a public speaker on occasions of national interest. 

JOHN MEL L EN THURSTON. 

John Mellen Thurston, Senator from Nebraska, was born at 
Montpelier, Vt., August 21, 1847. He removed to Wisconsin in 
1854. He was educated in the public schools and at Wayland 
University, Wis., supporting himself wliile in college by farm work 
and other manual labor. He was admitted to the bar in 1869, and 
the same year removed to Omaha, where he opened a law office. 
He was a member of the City Council in 1872, became City .attor- 
ney in 1874, and a member of the Nebraska Legislature in 1875. 
Since 1888 he has been general counsel of the Union Pacific Rail- 
road Company. He was elected to the United States Senate in 
1895. He was President of the Republican League of the United 



362 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 

States 1889-91, and was Chairman of the Republican National Con- 
ventions of 1888 and 1896. In the earlj' part of 1898 he visited 
Cuba and on his return made a speech in the Senate which aroused 
the country, and was one of the immediate causes of the action of 
Congress relative to the Cuban war. 

CHARLES A. TOWNE. 

Charles Arnette Towne, ex-Congressman from Minnesota, 
was born in Oakland County, Mich., November 21, 1858. He was 
prepared for college in the public schools, and afterward entered 
the University of Michigan, where he graduated in both the aca- 
demic and law courses. He practised law in Marquette, Mich., and 
then moved to Chicago, and finally to Duluth, Minn. From 1891-96 
he was a member of Congress from Minnesota. In 1896 he left 
the Republican Party because of the gold standard plank. He has 
been National Chairman of the Silver Republican Party since 1897. 
He was named by the Minnesota Legislature as Fusion candidate 
for the United States Senate, but was defeated by Senator Davis. 
In 1900 he was nominated for Vice-President by the Populists in 
their convention at Sioux City. He is noted as an orator and as an 
advocate of free silver. He la a very polished and forcible speaker. 

HENRY VAN DYKE. 

Henry Van Dyke was born at Germantown, Pa., November 10, 
1852. In 1869 he was graduated from the Brooklyn Polytechnic 
Institute, from Princeton College in 1873, from Princeton Theo- 
logical Seminary in 1877, and Berlin University in 1879. He re- 
ceived the degree of D.D. from Princeton in 1884, and LL.D. from 
Harvard in 1893, and from Yale in 1896. He became pastor of the 
United Congregational Church at Newport, R. I., in 1878. In 1882 
he became pastor of the Brick Presbyterian Church, New York, 
which position he held until 1899, when he was elected Professor of 
the English Language and Literature at Princeton University. He 
has been trustee of Princeton, one of the preachers to Harvard Col- 
lege, and delivered a memorial ode at the one hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary of Princeton University. He has devoted a large part 
of his time to literary work, and is one of the most celebrated 
authors of the day. The following are some of his books : " The 
Poetry of Tennyson ; " " The Story of the Psalms ; " '' Little Riv- 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 363 

ers; " " The Gospel for an Age of Doubt; " "The Builders and 
Other Poems;" "The Christ Child in Art;" "The Toiling of 
Felix, and Other Poems ; " " The Reality of Religion ; " " The Na- 
tional Sin of Literary Piracy;" "The Other Wise Man ; " "The 
First Christmas Tree;" "Straight Sermons to Young Men and 
Other Human Beings ; " "Ships and Havens." He is one of the 
most polished of pulpit orators in America. 

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON. 

Booker T. Washington was born near Hales Ford, Va. , about 
1859. He made his way to Hampton, Va., having heard of Hamp- 
ton Institute, and entered the collegiate department, from which he 
was graduated in 1875, In 189G Harvard conferred upon him the 
degree of M.A. He is of African descent. After graduating at 
Hampton he became a teacher there until he was elected by the 
State authorities of Alabama as the head of the Tuskegee Normal 
and Industrial Institute, of which he has been principal since 1S81. 
This institute, which started with a very small attendance, is now 
one of the largest schools in the South. He is a writer and speaker 
on racial and educational topics, and is repeatedly called for on 
great occasions to deliver patriotic addresses. He is the most elo- 
quent representative of his race. 

HENRY WATTERSON. 

Henry Watterson, editor of the Louisville Courier- Journal, 
was born at Washington, D. C, February 10, 1840. He was edu- 
cated mainly by private tutors. The degree of I). C.L. was con- 
ferred upon him by the University of the South. During the Civil 
War he was a staff oflBcer in the Confederate Array. Since the 
war he has been engaged as newspaper editor. In 1875 he was 
elected to Congress and served one term. But he has uniformly 
declined re-election. He has been delegate-at-large from Kentucky 
to the last six Democratic conventions, and presided over that of 
1876, and has been chairman of the platform committee in several 
other conventions. He is distinguished not only as a journalist 
but as a writer and as a public speaker. He is the author of the 
" History of the Spanish-American War," "Oddities of Southt-rii 
Life," and is now engaged upon "A History of the Administration 
of Abraham Lincoln." 



364 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 



EDWARD OLIVER WOLCOTT. 

Edward Oliver Wolcott, United States Senator from Colorado, 
wa8 born at Long Meadow, Mass., March 26, 1848. He was for a 
few months a private in the One Hundred and Fiftieth Ohio Volun- 
teers in 1864. After the war he entered Yale College but did not 
graduate. He entered the Harvard Law School, from which he 
was graduated in 1871. He then removed to Denver, Col., and 
opened a law office. He was elected to the United States Senate 
in 1889, and has been in the Senate since that time. He was ap- 
pointed by President McKinley as one of the commission to visit 
Europe in the interest of international bimetallism. He is a man 
of great force of intellect and power of statement as a speaker. 



31^77 



